She's Come Undone

By: Wally Lamb

Narrated by: Linda Stephens

Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

"Mine is a story of craving: an unreliable account of lusts and troubles that began, somehow, in 1956 on the day our free television was delivered...."

Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Beached like a whale in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally rolls into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before really going belly-up.

In this extraordinary coming-of-age odyssey, Wally Lamb invites us to hitch a wild ride on a journey of love, pain, renewal with the most heartbreakingly comical heroine to come along in years. At once a fragile girl and a hard-edged cynic, so tough to love yet so inimitably lovable, Dolores is as poignantly real as our own imperfections. She's Come Undone includes a promise: you will never forget Dolores Price.

©2011 Wally Lamb (P)2011 Simon & Schuster

Critic reviews

"A heroine to cheer for....This supremely touching journey to adulthood may remind you of The World According to Garp and other sagas of emotional liberation." ( Glamour)

"There are at least two surprises in store for readers of Lamb's memorable debut novel. One is the author's sex. This male writes so convincingly in the voice of a female, tracing her life from 4 to 40, that you have to keep looking back at the jacket picture just to make sure. The second surprise is how such a string of trials and tribulations can add up to such a touchingly funny book..." ( People)

"An ambitious, often stirring and hilarious book." ( The New York Times)

great summer read

tithes is a very long book. just when you think that it is over, something else happens. this book just keeps stringing you along.

As Good As Reading It

I read this book years ago as one of Oprah’s Book Club selection. This audible version was just as riveting as the hard copy was all those years ago.

After all these years…

I listened to SHE’S COME UNDONE on a loop for the past week.

This story is so well written - Everyman, everywoman, all folk of all financial and physical means are so very wonderfully represented in a work that truly tethers human foibles without harnessing spirit.

It’s so wonderful to have this work to listen to and gain perspective from.

The characters ARE in character.
The story has a main goal and several smaller ones generated by the plot - but all goals work beautifully together to temper tension. And all goal quests were answered. Not superfluously, either.

There’s humor, both light and dark. Where humor was used, Wally had complete control of every landing!

As a wounded human - I both ran with Dolores and stayed with her, when she parked for a while.

I liked her because I think she’d like me. And that’s saying a lot.

I am so grateful to Wally writing this work and his family for enabling this fantastic creativity - for all of you to help give birth to this book!

♥️

A book that will stay with you for a lifetime…

I first read this amazing book in my tumultuous 20s and have revisited it several times in the last twenty years. It is one of those books that creeps into your thoughts while in traffic on your way home from a long day at work. It shows up when you have something uncanny and unexpected happen to you. This is a golden fiber forever woven into my heart! It is worth the read now and re-read later!

I loved every minute of this necessarily uncomfortable but beautiful story

I loved this. The narrator did an amazing job, and the story was simply incredible. I have never felt so seen and heard in my journey of narcissistic abuse and disordered eating coping habits than this book. I came here after finishing The Bell Jar and I have to admit I'm in for a lighter read next but this was simply incredible. Life-altering.

(My one and ONLY gripe was that there was a bit of background fuzz that made it a tad harder to listen to for extended periods. Could use a retouch someday?)

Well Done

Nearly 200 titles into my audiobook habit, I'm still trying to figure out what makes for a good listen vs. a traditional read, especially within my favorite genres. I've grown somewhat wary of audio editions of literary novels -- they are almost always character-driven and light on plot, and therefore difficult in some cases to follow in audio. But it's still my favorite style of fiction, so I keep trying.

At first, She's Come Undone was on track to disappoint me in that very way. The first few hours are pure character development, no forward momentum in the narrative at all. I could not imagine getting through another 15+ hours of that, could not imagine what could possibly fill another 15+ hours, short of tedium and repetition.

But there is one quality an audiobook may possess that you cannot get in print -- an actual voice reciting the inner monologue of your protagonist. If that voice is first person and at least sometimes comic (as is the case here on both counts), a narrator that captures that voice can make the listening experience far more effective than the voice inside your head when you read in print.

That's the case here, for me at least -- look at the other reviews and you will see contrary opinions on the effectiveness of Linda Stephens as narrator. Add in the decidedly mixed reviews on Goodreads provided by (presumably) a large percentage of print readers, and She's Come Undone is clearly a love-it or hate-it kind of book. There is little middle ground.

I come in on the love-it (or more accurately the like it well enough) side, and that is primarily because of Linda Stephens's narration. In addition, Dolores, battling her weight issues, depression, family dysfunction, bullying, bad relationships, and some serious tragedy, is similar in many ways to someone very close to me, so I found the story highly relatable. Some of the events and symbolism (the whale) are indeed as heavy handed as the harsher critics claim, but for me, no showstoppers there, just a four-star listen rather than five-star.

Narrator was occasionally distracting

Narrator had a distracting quality to her voice, especially when she sang or did impressions of other characters in the book. The book overall was pretty good, although I did not enjoy it as much as other Wally lamb books I have read.

Loved it

I love this book and the app I recommend anyone to read!! Thank you Audible

Weird sub stories

Good narration but the story took weird uncomfortable at times twists. I doubt I'll go back and listen again

She's Come Undone

loved it couldn't stop listening even went to bed with it and the narrator was excellant.