ReadingFanatic

Title: She's Come Undone
Author: Wally Lamb
Pages:465
Rating: 4/5

About this book:
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 Mallmomars, 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, and 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.

My thoughts:
Not a bad book. Interesting. Wasn't too fond of the main character, Dolores, but I also can relate to her in a way. Well, in a lot of ways. I think Wally Lamb did a great job and getting into the mind of a girl growing up and how she feels about her body and knowing what a teenage girl feels in high school and what not. To me, the story was like weird but also entralling. I hope that makes sense. I had mixed feelings when I started it and thought about not even finishing it but when I'd start to feel that way, something would happen and I'd get hooked to it again. Then I'd go back and be bored with it and then something would hook me again. It was kinda like an emotional roller coaster or something. Weird. I've definitly never read a book like that before. Something so odd. Although I did like it. The book isn't for everybody though. That's for sure. ( Spoilers... )
All in all, it was a good book! :)

Amy

Title:For One More Day
Author:Mitch Albom
Pages:197
Rating: 3.5/5

About this book:
For One More Day is the story of a mother and a son, and a relationship that covers a lifetime and beyond. It explores the question: What would you do if you could spend one more day with a lost loved one?

As a child, Charley "Chick" Benetto was told by his father, "You can be a mama's boy or a daddy's boy, but you can't be both." So he chooses his father, only to see the man disappear when Charley is on the verge of adolescence.

Decades later, Charley is a broken man. His life has been crumbled by alcohol and regret. He loses his job. He leaves his family. He hits bottom after discovering his only daughter has shut him out of her wedding. And he decides to take his own life.

He makes a midnight ride to his small hometown, with plans to do himself in. But upon failing even to do that, he staggers back to his old house, only to make an astonishing discovery. His mother -- who died eight years earlier -- is still living there, and welcomes him home as if nothing ever happened.

What follows is the one "ordinary" day so many of us yearn for, a chance to make good with a lost parent, to explain the family secrets, and to seek forgiveness. Somewhere between this life and the next, Charley learns the astonishing things he never knew about his mother and her sacrifices. And he tries, with her tender guidance, to put the crumbled pieces of his life back together.

Comments:
I thought this book was rather interesting. I was a little confused at first and unsure what to make of the book. I liked the set up. It was a fast read as well. Anyways, surprisingly this book didn't make me cry. It made me think about my mom and dad. I thought about how i should start doing things for them since they are my parents and what not. I thought the characters were very realistic. Actually I thought that it could be based on a true story. That's how real they seemed. I liked Charley the best because he reminded me of myself. Which is pretty sad.

EDIT: I found out from someone on LJ that the character Charley is actually a real person. Now I'm not sure if everything about the book is true but it kinda seems like it.

Quotes:
"Kids chase the love that eludes them, and for me that was my father's love. He kept it tucked away, like papers in a briefcase. And I keep trying to get in there."

"You can be a mama's boy or you can be a daddy's boy but you can't be both. So you cling to the one you think you might lose."

"Sometimes kids want you to hurt the way they hurt."

Amy