Awards
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A People Magazine Top 10 Book of the Year
A Los Angeles Times Book Award Finalist for Best First Novel of the Year
Synopses & Reviews
In this extraordinary coming-of-age odyssey, Wally Lamb invites us to hitch a wild ride on a journey of love, pain, and renewal with the most heartbreakingly comical heroine to come along in years.
Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Stranded 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 orbits 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 she really goes under.
Review
"This male writes so convincingly in the voice of a female...that you have to keep looking back at the jacket picture just to make sure....A touchingly funny book." People
Review
"A tremendously likable first novel....Lamb has a broad satiric touch with some satisfying fat targets....A warmblooded, enveloping tale of survival, done up loose and cheering." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[An] engaging first novel....The author keenly evokes his protagonist's profound alienation and self-loathing, endowing Dolores with a bleak sense of humor that keeps readers rooting for her." Publishers Weekly
Review
"[A]n ambitious, often stirring and hilarious book....Despite its strong story line, the book's suspense depends more on emotions than events, and its pleasures lie primarily in its lively narrative style and biting humor." Hilma Wolitzer, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"[Lamb's] stunningly drawn portrait of the scarred, misterable and oft-times gastronomically challenged Dolores seduces the reader into acknowledging some of the very reasons we don't always enjoy being a girl." Bust Magazine
Review
"[C]ompelling....Dolores is not always likable, but her story combines sorrow and wonder in a remarkable way." Library Journal
Review
"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
Synopsis
A selection of Oprah's Book Club! In his extraordinary coming-of-age odyssey, Wally Lamb invites readers to hitch a wild ride on a journey of love, pain, and renewal with the most heartbreakingly comical heroine to come along in years. Meet 13-year-old Delores Price. She's left her childhood behind, and spends her adolescence munching in front of the TV. When she orbits into young womanhood at 257 pounds, she 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 she really goes under. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year; a People Magazine Top 10 Book of the Year; A Los Angeles Times Book Award Finalist for Best First Novel of the Year.
About the Author
Wally Lamb's fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Pushcart Prize XV: Best of the Small Presses; The Best of the Small Presses; The Best of the Missouri Review; Streetsongs 1: New Voices in Fiction; Northeast and The New York Times Magazine. He is the recipient of an NEA grant for fiction, and is a Missouri Review William Peden fiction prize winner. A nationally honored teacher of writing, and a graduate of the Vermont College MFA's Writing Program, Lamb lives in Connecticut with his wife and their three children. His first novel, She’s Come Undone, was an Oprah Book Club Selection, and has since sold millions of copies. He is also the author of the bestsellers I Know This Much Is True, The Hour I First Believed, and We Are Water.