We Are Water

A Novel

By: Wally Lamb

Narrated by: Wally Lamb, George Guidall, Maggi-Meg Reed, Tavia Gilbert, Richard Ferrone, Edoardo Ballerini, Cynthia Darlow, Therese Plummer, Sandy Rustin

Length: 23 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

We Are Water is a disquieting and ultimately uplifting audiobook about a marriage, a family, and human resilience in the face of tragedy, from Wally Lamb, the New York Times best-selling author of The Hour I First Believed and I Know This Much is True.

After 27 years of marriage and three children, Anna Oh - wife, mother, outsider artist - has fallen in love with Viveca, the wealthy Manhattan art dealer who orchestrated her success. They plan to wed in the Oh family's hometown of Three Rivers in Connecticut. But the wedding provokes some very mixed reactions and opens a Pandora's Box of toxic secrets - dark and painful truths that have festered below the surface of the Ohs' lives.

We Are Water is a layered portrait of marriage, family, and the inexorable need for understanding and connection, told in the alternating voices of the Ohs: nonconformist, Anna; her ex-husband, Orion, a psychologist; Ariane, the do-gooder daughter, and her twin, Andrew, the rebellious only son; and free-spirited Marissa, the youngest. It is also a portrait of modern America, exploring issues of class, changing social mores, the legacy of racial violence, and the nature of creativity and art.

With humor and compassion, Wally Lamb brilliantly captures the essence of human experience and the ways in which we search for love and meaning in our lives.

The complete list of narrators includes Robin Miles and Sandy Rustin.

©2013 Wally Lamb (P)2013 HarperCollinsPublishers

engrossing

I could not stop listening to this book but like others say it was hard to listen to the sexual abuse. I had to skip some parts.... probably because I'm a survivor. The way this story is told had me losing sleep because I needed to know what was going to happen to these characters, they were so we'll developed it seemed like I knew them.

Not a bad story.Terrible Narration

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Yes. The Plot twisted around and got slow in parts, but when it sped it up it was compelling.

How could the performance have been better?

The Narration was terrible. The Narrators for Annie and Vivica were difficult to listen to. Annie had a sing song cadence and seemed to end each sentence with a question. Vivica sounded like Lovey on Gilligans Island.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

possibly

Any additional comments?

The Reader spends quite a lot of time waiting for things to happen and the themes are fairly typical in the end

just plain WOW!

Would you listen to We Are Water again? Why?

oh yea this was a great book keeps you wanting more. sweet revenge maybe

It really makes you think...

I did not have a childhood like Annie's, thank goodness, but nobody is perfect. This book really made me think about my childhood, and patterns of abuse; where did they start? How can they stop? What is the best way to overcome trauma?

The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars was because I did not feel like it was all that balanced. Especially towards the end. I don't know if the author did this on purpose or not, though.

I will say that you really feel for the characters, and I was able to see a little bit of myself in all of the children. Definitely worth the listen!!

Not Up To Snuff

If you could sum up We Are Water in three words, what would they be?

Disappointing
Over analyzed
Underdeveloped

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

Disappointed. Surprised at lack of ending. Still had some wonderful writing but fell flat as a whole. Wally Lamb usually writes a well rounded story with a beginning, middle and end. This book was too long and lacked Wally Lamb's usual well developed plot lines. Hoping that his next book gives us the caliber and kind of writing we expect from Mr. Lamb. Nobody hits it out of the park every time.

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Narration really added to the book. I read the book as well as listen to it and the audiobook was much better.

If you could take any character from We Are Water out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Orion Oh. Would like to ask him why he seemed like such a strong and honest man on one hand, but then contradicted himself with some of the actions and thinking he engaged in. I initially really liked this man but found myself wavering my thoughts about his character as time went on. Kind of a roller coaster like/dislike/ reactions I had as the story progressed. I could not decide how I felt about him until the last half when he seemed to give up and lost his strength and honesty. Not the man I thought he was.

Any additional comments?

This book was one I was looking forward to for so long and perhaps I am being too judgmental in my feelings about this book, now that I have finally been able to read/listen to it. It is a good enough book...just not on the level I expected considering that Wally Lamb wrote it.

It started out well enough, got my interest initially but it became tedious and a bit boring after a couple hundred pages. I wish that Viveca played a bigger role in the story for one thing. Other characters that were initially introduced never really re entered the story, if at all, until the ending section. I usually love Lamb's descriptions and his ability to develop characters. You feel like you really get to know them and you care about them or not. And I've always felt invested in the characters. His books She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True are both outstanding novels. This characters in this book didn't really evoke the kind of emotional response that I usually expect when I am reading one of Lamb's books.

There seemed to be an excess amount of psycho-babble that just didn't feel right. Although Orion is a psychologist, I felt as if all the characters were "analyzed" rather than developed as people with certain traits and characteristics that were written about and the reader got to know these people through the descriptions, conversation, actions etc. In We Are Water I felt as if everyone was presented as if they were all clients of a psycholigist or social worker.And as a result the characters never felt very real to me and it was hard to be very interested in some cases. There were times when I felt I got a glimpse of who someone was all about but somehow they ended up kind of two dimensional to me.

Cant' stand the female narrator

I'm only half way through the book and am not sure if I will continue. I really liked the prologue and I felt that only good things would follow. The following chapters alternate between Orion and Annie. Orian's chapters are fine but the female narrator's voice is so pretentious that I have trouble listening. Not sure if I'll listen to the rest simply because of her.

Interesting book with a few issues

I want to rate this 3.75 stars. It seems as if it is centered around Annie Oh, artist, recently divorced wife about to marry another woman. There are several characters whose story we hear, all connected to her. Near the end there is no chapter in her voice which bothered me. It's a long book and the story is somewhat complicated. I'm not complaining about that at all - just that I really didn't like one of the main characters that I think I was supposed to like. This book deals with some serious subjects such as murder and pedophilia.

The performance was excellent and brought the book up quite a bit. Several narrators have a person they narrate. The author narrates Orion Oh, Annie's ex-husband.

This is my third book of Listening to my Friends' Suggestions. The book that was suggested by him that looked even better wasn't available in an unabridged edition. I would definitely listen to that if it became available. I will thank my friend for this suggestion.

Fantastic book

I was taken immediately by these wonderful characters! The story line was exciting and mysterious, and I loved hearing the many sides.
My feelings became quite realistic, I laughed, cried, and quite frankly, could not put this book down! I recommend it highly!

A+++++++++ALL OF WALLY LAMB'S NOVELS ARE AMAZING.

Any additional comments?

If you have never read Wally Lamb's novels, stop whatever you are doing/reading and get one. ALL OF THEM ARE EXCELLENT. He writes long books that you never want to end. I love his books so much I have read a few of them twice. I finish the book. Usually cry. And start on page 1 for a second read.

One too many . . .

There seems to be moment, at least for me, in the last few books by Wally Lamb where I am going along, enjoying the melodrama for all it's worth, the bad decisions, the broken relationships, and then Wally asks me to jump one hurdle too high.

Annnnnd the spell is broken. I just don't buy it. It is one misfortune too many. This happened for me in the second half of the book with one of the children. I will not get into spoilers but it was at this point where I went, "Nope. This is too much."

Lamb plunges into familiar themes: failed marriages, abusive parents, child molestation, abandoned husbands, repressed wives and random violence. And often times these many stories come off as believable and moving. But just as often I, as the reader, felt manipulated. There was just a little too much handwringing for me.

Each character in We are Water has his or her own sad tale, some sadder than others, but all pandering for your understanding. There is Annie Oh, artist provocateur, who is seeking a new life in the big city with her new love; her ex-husband, who was still trying to come to terms will with his divorce from Annie; there are the children, each struggling to find a foothold on their lives and each struggling to come to terms with their mother's new life.

Is this book badly written? No, of course not. I am glad I read it and will read his next with much anticipation. It is just that this book was heavy-handed, like Lamb doesn't trust the emotions to come through without overt earnestness. In this way the book is different from say a book like Heft where much is in what is not said. This, of course, has been a criticism with most of his work. I just think he was able to pull it off better with his earlier books.