This was another tough book to read. She’s Come Undone is the story of Dolores told from the time she is young until she is a grown up. Dolores has parents who divorce when she is young and her mother becomes very depressed and sends Dolores to live with her grandmother until she is recovered. Her relationship with her mother is hard throughout their lives, and Dolores has very little self confidence throughout the book.
A number of unfortunate things happen to Dolores between men (and women) taking advantage of her sexually, peers using her and mocking her and losses throughout her life of those she is close to. Dolores early on starts using food as a coping mechanism and is obese by the time she goes to college which does not make her self-confidence or her ease in fitting in any better. Throughout the book you can see the cycle of lack of self esteem, misery, and feeling victimized just repeated again and again.
Dolores eventually leaves story and drives towards the ocean after hearing of whales that have beached themselves and the rescue going on. Dolores feels a connection with the whales and the ocean and heads that direction before becoming suicidal and becoming committed to a mental institution. Even as Dolores heals she continues to make bad decisions and choose relationships that hurt her rather than help her.
I was happy that in the end of the book Dolores was in a better place then anywhere else that we saw her, however I still felt that this was a hard book to read. I almost did not want to know what would happen next because everything was just so bad. Wally Lamb certainly knows how to make people react and feel which is an important part of writing a book, but I don’t think this is one I would read again.
21/10/2009 at 10:50 pm Permalink
This book really bothered and depressed me, but at the same time, Wally Lamb is such a great writer!