She's Come Undone »

Wally Lamb's books are neither short nor simple; but like a James Patterson of emotions, he pulls readers in and doesn't let go. His affecting novels are marvels of imagination and empathy.

"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. ...

BUST Magazine

I was impressed and incredulous that this exquisitely nuanced ode to the living hell that is one woman's puberty was written by a man [gasp]. His 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.