She's Come Undone

Product Information

Elena is tortured for the first time in the series by Damon and Stefan. She takes everything they do to her without complaint, and doesn't break down as they had hoped. The narrative of She's Come Undone is captivating and intense, making it a truly unforgettable read. Following the accidental death of her mother, Dolores decides to attend the academically underwhelming Merton College in Pennsylvania. There Dolores is ridiculed for her weight and cultivates a secret obsession with her roommate's long-distance boyfriend, Dante, who sends love letters and nude photos in the mail. After an ill-conceived one-night stand with Dottie, the university's lesbian custodian, she takes a long cab ride to Cape Cod, where she witnesses a beached whale dying. She feels kinship with the animal and wades into the water to drown herself. I loved the way Dolores' journey of transformation was depicted in She's Come Undone; it was both inspiring and heartbreaking. When I read this book, I felt like the author took his (surprisingly the author is a man for such a female story) hand, clawed through my ribcage and tore my heart out. This is one of the few books that makes me cry. I may feel sorrow when I read an angsty book, but normally I don't cry. Well this one turned on the waterworks for me.

Best: The story is excellent. This author creates very believable characters. Least: Linda Stephens' performance. Can't tell you my favorite scene without it being a spoiler. But trust me, when you get to it, you'll know. It was the favorite scene of everyone in my book club who read the book.I found the character development in She's Come Undone to be incredibly well-crafted and multi-dimensional. Just under two months later on October 12th, 1969 it entered Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart at position #78; and on November 23rd, 1969 it peaked at #22 {for 1 week} and spent 10 weeks on the Top 100... After reading (listening to) this story (forcibly Suggested by a friend) I have come to realize that I am indeed Dolores Price - born a few years later - but also Molested and traumatized on several levels. I am currently in my FAT Phase - and Im motivated - and I found as I was Cheering for Delores to allow herself happiness - I realized I TOO was denying myself happiness. Her voice has many levels and I kept thinking that toni collette was reading - but at times she sounds much older and others she seems younger??? a great story teller voice!!! Wally Lamb is the author of She's Come Undone, The Hour I First Believed, and I Know This Much Is True. Two were featured as selections of Oprah's Book Club. Lamb is the recipient of the Connecticut Center for the Book's Lifetime Achievement Award, the Connecticut Bar Association's Distinguished Public Service Award, the Connecticut Governor's Art Award, the Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, the 1999 New England Book Award for Fiction, and the Missouri Review William Peden Fiction Prize.

Claire from Miller's, MdThe first time I heard this song was in an antique store with my dad in Westminster, MD. From that day on this has been my fav song by The Guess Who. Since its publication, readers have commented over and over at Lamb's masterful portrayal of women. He renders Dolores as a downtrodden victim who somehow miraculously maintains her sense of humor and ultimately develops the self-esteem she has been missing all along. Dolores's voice resonates with readers long after they have finished Lamb's novel. I know MANY insightful, perceptive men who understand women, so I don't find it a stretch that a man can write with a woman's voice. This is creative fiction after all. Dante seemed merely a pawn, convenient to the author for whatever drama he wanted to introduce to Dolores, but there was no consistency in him throughout the book. When this book was released some critics labeled it as humorous or hilarious. I did not think so (except the joke about Parkinson’s Disease).I’m not afraid. It’s more like…” I watched myself in the mirror above the sink. The mask was suddenly a gag. I listened.

I was also not expecting the character/s in the book to go through pretty much every form of abuse imaginable; emotional, physical, sexual, even animal abuse features and it was a miserable read, you think it won't get worse and then it does! Having spend her formative years eating in front of the television while watching soap operas, Dolores is virtually unable to relate to people when she begins her freshman year of college. As such, Dolores attempts suicide and, as a result, spends the next seven years in an institution. Not to be deterred, however, Dolores emerges from the experience ready to face the world once again. Her road to self-discovery and self-confidence, however, is not without difficulties along the way. Dolores's determination and fight to find self-worth in the face of societal pressures is charted over the course of the novel. Many readers will relate to the struggles Dolores endures as well as to her resolve to succeed once she finds it.

Wally Lamb

Dolores is hard to identify with - in one way this book is so honest, touching upon things people don't mention enough. Obesity and Aids and rape and horrible husbands and death and...well, so much. This is in no way a simple novel about a woman overcoming obesity. Does she ever survive and find herself? Or does she just survive and find herself in a realistic way, the only way people ever really can? Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn August 16th 1969, the Guess Who performed "Undun" on the ABC-TV program 'American Bandstand'... By now, Dolores is in her late 30s and is depressed by the idea that she will never be a mother. Thayer, now her husband, takes her on a whale watching vacation to help her feel better. While on the boat, Dolores muses about her past and future. Dolores decides that her life, as it is now, is wonderful and is enough. The novel ends with her being the only one to see a whale breach the ocean, symbolizing her newfound peace. She grows up in the mid-1950s and early sixties, a time where a woman's place is in the home. Her ma has a miscarriage and doesn't want to be in the home any longer, a home where her husband has affairs and abuses her. They divorce, and Ma has a nervous breakdown, which lands her in a mental hospital. Dolores accidentally arrives at college a week early, but the creepy lesbian janitor (not because lesbians or janitors are creepy, but because this particular creepy person is also a lesbian and a janitor)—a.k.a. Dottie—befriends her and lets her stay. When Kippy arrives, she instantly hates Dolores for being fat. Kippy soon upgrades her boyfriend from Dante the long-distance dishrag to Eric the hypersexual drug-abusing frat bro. Dolores steals Dante's letters, including his nudie pics, and keeps them, slowly falling in love with this boy she's never met.