We Are Water - Wally Lamb

We Are Water by Wally Lamb
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I didn't love We Are Water, I didn't hate We Are Water - in fact I just feel ambivalent about it. Annie Oh, a prominent artist, is days away from marrying gallery owner Viveca. She has recently ended a 27 year marriage to Orion Oh, with whom she has three grown children. Told in a stream of consciousness style by alternating characters, this book mainly takes place over a three day period - however, you throughly learn the back grounds of both Annie, Orion and their children. I did not care for this style of writing and would have enjoyed more dialogue and interaction between the characters. That being said the flow of the novel was good, it didn't lag or bore me, this is a testament to Wally Lamb's ability to craft a story.
Character development was strong and each character had their own voice. I really hated Annie and I hated Orion for having a relationship with her - I never felt the connection between them even as they recalled their courtship. Annie's relationship with Viveca also felt unreal and odd, she had no business being in a relationship with a man or a women until she healed herself. I liked Orion the best, he was not perfect but possibly I liked him because he felt the most real, less cliche then other characters in the book.
My favorite two chapters in We Are Water were the first one by Gualtiero Agnello and Part II Mercy by Ruth Fletcher, these chapters are where Lamb shined with gave us the story telling we have come to love in She's Come Undone and I Know this Much is True, I would enjoy a whole novel of Josephus Jones his murder.
Part IV A Wedding was my least favorite part of the book. Kent Kelly was a fascinating and memorable character, one who was essential to Annie's story -but the way in which he was introduced into the story line felt forced and rushed, too convenient. I think Lamb needed a way to create a climax, action and reveal Annie's secrets but it all was a bit soapy and overly dramatic. As much as I disliked Annie I hated that he ruined her wedding, Kelly's exit from the novel and the secrets that created was also a bit too soapy.
And now what I hated about We Are Water - Lamb's constant attempt to cram popular culture and current events down our throats, this novel felt to much like a political statement on everything and ultimately this distracted from the overall story. Lamb covered every trendy news topic from the past decade, 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palin, Fort Hood shooting, Lindsey Lohan, Lady Gaga, health care, gay rights, PTSD, Bush, Obama, Evangelical Christians, conservatives, Clinton, etc. It was exhausting and as I went through each characters chapters, I found my self thinking, do people really think like this. Lamb's ability to tie in current events and popular culture into his novels was part of what I loved about his first two, but this just felt to forced to crammed down your throat. Maybe because these stories are still apart of our news coverage or are just to recent - I really didn't like these references through. Maybe some day this novel will be a classic novel representing American life at the start of the 21st century but for now it felt to fresh.
A day out from completing Lamb's latest novel my feelings remain mixed - thus my three star rating. I liked the stories of each family member, I liked most the people and Lamb is still a master story teller, but this novel fell short of his first two and left something to be desired. This is not a novel that will stick with me but ultimately one I enjoyed reading and would recommend to fans of Wally Lamb.

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To Be Read Tuesday Help for the Haunted By John Searles

Today you can get to your local bookseller, library or get on your Kindle or Nook and purchase this to be read feature.  Today is Help for the Haunted's release date and I wish I was running out to buy it but it is going to have to wait.....no sure how long I can hold out though!
Help for the Haunted has been highly recommended by Wally Lamb and Gillian Flynn, two of my favorite authors, so it has to be good, right!  Hailed as a creepy, unique, suspenseful and compelling read, I can't wait to get my hands on it!

It begins with a call in the middle of snowy February evening. Lying in her bed, young Sylvie Mason overhears her parents on the phone across the hall. This is not the first late-night call they have received, since her mother and father have an uncommon occupation, helping "haunted souls" find peace. And yet, something in Sylvie senses that this call is different than the rest, especially when they are lured to the old church on the outskirts of town. Once there, her parents disappear, one after the other, behind the church's red door, leaving Sylvie alone in the car. Not long after, she drifts off to sleep only to wake to the sound of gunfire.

Nearly a year later, we meet Sylvie again struggling with the loss of her parents, and living in the care of her older sister, who may be to blame for what happened the previous winter.

As the story moves back and forth in time, through the years leading up to the crime and the months following, the ever inquisitive and tender-hearted Sylvie pursues the mystery, moving closer to the knowledge of what occurred that night, as she comes to terms with her family's past and uncovers secrets that have haunted them for years. (taken from Goodreads)

I can't wait to read Wally Lamb's new book, We Are Water!

I can not wait to read We Are Water.  Wally Lamb is my favorite author, I will pre-order this book. 
Expected publication: October 22nd 2013 by Harper







 
We Are Water is a disquieting and ultimately uplifting novel about a marriage, a family, and human resilience in the face of tragedy, from Wally Lamb, the New York Times bestselling 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.

These are a few of my favorite books.....

I have read a lot of books.  I cannot remember a time that I didn't read or have a love affair with books, even before I could read I loved these big Sesame Street and Peanuts books my mom bought us with coupons from the grocery store and any large glossy coffee table book.  Books were my friends, they accompanied me everywhere I went.  While in junior high school I developed a fondness for R.L Stine's Fear Street series and any other knock off I could buy from the troll book order form our English teacher would hand out.  My mother hated these and tried to ban them.  I never understood her stance, at least I was reading, she was always begging my siblings to read and creating summer programs for us.  For my summer reading program she forced me to challenge myself, so I had to read the classics, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice. I was sneaky and threw in a few not so classics, John Jakes North and South trilogy, The Thorn Birds, Gone with the Wind.  For every three classics I read and did a book report on I could get a new R.L. Stine book.  After nine classics in one summer I earned the cheerleader trilogy and devoured them in one night - the disappointment of all my hard work for one night of trashy reading stung.  Oddly enough, I still sort of do what my mom made me do that summer, if I read to much chic lit I have to mix in a classic or a history book, some real reading!
I cannot pick my all time favorite book - all sorts of books have resonated with me for all sorts of different reasons.  Some times a line in a beachy chic lit book can affect me as much as the greatest classic and other times a book perfectly captures my feelings at that moment in time.
In my late high school years Oprah introduced her book club, on the days she announced the new books or host the discussions I would race home from school trying to beat my little brother to the TV so he couldn't tune into Power Rangers first.  This is how I was introduced to one of my favorite books, She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb.

Paperback, 465 pages

Published June 28th 1998 by Pocket (first published August 1992)

original title

She's Come Undone

ISBN

0671021001 (ISBN13: 9780671021009)

literary awards

New York Times Notable Book, Los Angeles Times Book Prize

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.


She's Come Undone introduced me to new genre, contemporary adult literature, it was fresh and exciting in a way that things I had previously read were not and Wally Lamb created compelling realistic characters who were not stereotyped or your typical heroines.  I loved it and took it everywhere I went using any second of free time to cram in a much as possible.  I took the book to Spanish class one day and my teacher was horrified that I was reading it and called my mother to find out if she knew what I was reading.  Oddly enough, my mom heavily censored what I watched on TV (no Beverly Hills 90210) but never what books I read (she let me read The Thorn Birds in 7th grade!)
Due to Senora Bernier's concern my mom read She's Come Undone when I had finished - she loved it! 
Delores resonated with me, we all struggled through adolescents, trying to figure out who we were and what our place was and trying to get the things we thought we wanted. Now as an adult I have probably read this book twenty times and each time Delores's struggles touch me more and more.  My paperback copy is held together with tape and I will never get rid of it. 
I continue to recommend She's Come Undone to people - nearly 20 years after I read it - its that good.  If you haven't read it yet, read it now!