Little Children

by Tom Perrotta

book data

7,266 ratings, 3.53 average rating, 943 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		14%
4		39%
3		33%
2		9%
1		2%

edit

published

January 1st 2005 (first published 2004) by St. Martin's Griffin

binding

Paperback, 368 pages

characters

Richard, Sarah, Kathy, Todd

isbn

0312315732 (isbn13: 9780312315733)

description

Tom Perrotta's thirty-ish parents of young children are a varied and surprising bunch. There's Todd, the handsome stay-at-home dad dubbed "The Pr...more

find at: Amazon | Half.com | Barnes & Noble | compare prices ($0.40)…

new topic
discuss this book

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Next Best Boo...: What are you reading?	13081	11056	16 minutes ago
Constant Reader: Favorite quotations?	89	295	13 days ago, 09:35AM
Constant Reader: Great Book, Bad Movie, How Hollywood ruins novels.	27	133	03/31/2009 08:06AM
The Next Best Boo...: OFFICIAL WINTER CHALLENGE - 2008/2009	2174	3162	03/04/2009 07:03AM
50 Books A Year: Kathy's 2009 Book List	3	129	12/24/2008 08:16AM

friend reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

lists with this book

Best Books of the Decade: 2000's

789 books | 3433 voters

Light but not (too) dumb

119 books | 77 voters

More lists...

other reviews (showing 1-20 of 8,971)

sort: default (?) | date
filters: all | text-only

07/04/07

Camille Torres rated it:

Read in June, 2007

Although many book reviews that I have read focused on Todd and Sarah’s relationship or who the story was about in Perrotta’s Little Children it was the women who really affected me.

I am not sure if Perrotta intended to pit Sarah and Kathy character’s against one another, but he did. Sarah was a feminist who found herself a housewife and mother in a loveless marriage. Sarah was living a life that she had not intended and suffered under the guilt of not wanting to be a mother ...more Although many book reviews that I have read focused on Todd and Sarah’s relationship or who the story was about in Perrotta’s Little Children it was the women who really affected me.

I am not sure if Perrotta intended to pit Sarah and Kathy character’s against one another, but he did. Sarah was a feminist who found herself a housewife and mother in a loveless marriage. Sarah was living a life that she had not intended and suffered under the guilt of not wanting to be a mother and not being a good mother. While Kathy was a working woman with a stay at home husband who got what she asked for in college: A career and a man willing to stay at home while she worked. However, Kathy was not happy either. Kathy was beautiful, with a picture perfect family, but she suffered under her own guilt for not staying home and for wanting a husband who could and would provide for them so that she could stay home even though it was against her feminist understanding. So here they are: two modern women trying to wrestle around their ideas of what they should be and what they have turned out to be. Both women are envious of one another’s lives and competing for the love and affection of Todd, Kathy’s husband. Although Kathy and Sarah barely interact in the novel and only have one scene in the novel where they are together, the tension is tangible. Sarah is jealous of Kathy’s job and near the end of the novel envisions herself working and Todd being her stay at home husband, while Kathy is jealous of the relationship that developed between Todd and Sarah. Kathy knows that she is pushing her husband into a career and life he doesn’t want for her own selfish reasons, while Sarah and Todd seem to exist accepting each other for their flaws, and unhappiness. Both women’s lives did not work according to how they planned and both women are miserable. Leaving today’s feminist wondering: Can we really have everything? What kind of choices have we created for ourselves? How do we balance our passion to work and our passion to have a family?

In the end, Kathy remains with Todd. But she is unhappy. She knows that Todd will stay at home and she will be forced to support them. Sarah ends up a single mother, and finds some kind of inner peace with her destiny. But both women seem to realize that Todd is not their answer and that instead they must find their own inner peace with their roles, even if it is not what they want. An underdeveloped character that is more miserable than Kathy and Sarah is Mary Ann. Perotta should have spent time developing this woman’s choices and ideas of feminism, because unlike the other woman she tries to convince herself that she is happy.

Perrotta’s overarching storyline is simple: taking a microscope and examining the inhabitants of suburbia. But his story is unique in how he pulls the reader into sympathizing and understanding all of his characters, even when we do not want to feel for them. The reader finds herself not rooting for either Kathy or Sarah, but for wanting both of them to be free of their chains that they put on themselves. The novel, however, is cliché in the fact that all the women characters, from the ladies at the book club to the leads, end up playing the traditional woman martyr. I would have liked if he showed one woman who would not and could not live this stereotypical female role. It isn’t that Sarah needs to abandon her daughter, but more that Perrotta does not delve deep enough into why Sarah is having such a hard time coping with being a mother – its deeper than her feminist roots and her transformation at the end is shallow and unrealistic. I think that perhaps Perrotta fails to convey the difficulties that his adult children have understanding what little children really want and need from a parent. Nevertheless, I am deeply moved and disturbed by all these women.
(less)

Like this review? yes (8 people liked it)

add a comment

05/30/07

Jeremy rated it:

bookshelves: borrowed-from-someone, fiction

Tom Perrotta is usually very fun to read. I'm pretty sure I've read all his books, and I typically polish them off (meaning I read them, not eat them; you should not eat books) within the day, which for me is impressive. A dinette set could finish a marathon with time to spare well before I complete a book, but Perrotta's voice is easygoing and funny, and a master at pacing if you ask me, so I happily breeze right through.

But "Little Children", for which he has arguably...more Tom Perrotta is usually very fun to read. I'm pretty sure I've read all his books, and I typically polish them off (meaning I read them, not eat them; you should not eat books) within the day, which for me is impressive. A dinette set could finish a marathon with time to spare well before I complete a book, but Perrotta's voice is easygoing and funny, and a master at pacing if you ask me, so I happily breeze right through.

But "Little Children", for which he has arguably received the most attention, is in no way his best book. Now I still finished it in a day or two, so at least it's not boring. I got the impression that Perrotta felt like he was making this ostensibly mind-blowing point about the parent-child relationship, wanting us to sit down with our head in our hands and murmur "My God, my child is not the child, but I, the parent, am really the child, although my child is the child as well, but only because nature has forced him to be a child, whereas I, the parent, a supposed adult, have no such excuse for my childish behavior, and yet I remain a child, a child who has a child. I'm calling DHS on myself. Thank you, Tom Perrotta".

I hate to think of him snapping his fingers and declaring "Aha! I will name my book 'Little Children'! That's perfect! Because it involves little children, like real actual children, but really it's about the little children in all of us! Because that's all we are! Everyone! Honey! Honey? Where are you? Honey, are you in the bathroom? Where are you?! Honey?! Jesus, there you are! How can you stand the TV that loud? I just figured it out! Guess what I'm calling the book? 'Little Children'! It means two things!"

I guess if you had never read any of his stuff in the past, this book might seem pretty good, and where it was the first novel of his to really spend much time on the charts, it seems likely to me that better-than-usual marketing (coupled with the fact that, on the whole, young parents seem to like to read books) is the most viable explanation for the novel's comparatively runaway success.

Worst of all is the ending, which is just really, really stupid. Didn't like the movie much, either. (less)

Like this review? yes (6 people liked it)

add a comment

04/19/07

Leah rated it:

Read in March, 2007

recommends it for: Those on the verge of a quarter-life crisis

I honestly picked up this book becuase I'd liked the movie so much. I understand that this makes me a bad, bad woman, but I don't mind. The story the second time around was equally pleasing, and much the same, with two major, driving differences. I won't quibble about either much, but luckily it was a different enough experience to feel fresh.

The basic story is of Todd and Sarah, two stay-at-home parents who strike up a totally improbable affair on the playground one day, over s...more I honestly picked up this book becuase I'd liked the movie so much. I understand that this makes me a bad, bad woman, but I don't mind. The story the second time around was equally pleasing, and much the same, with two major, driving differences. I won't quibble about either much, but luckily it was a different enough experience to feel fresh.

The basic story is of Todd and Sarah, two stay-at-home parents who strike up a totally improbable affair on the playground one day, over swings and under the watchful glare of three suburban biddies. Also occuring as an inter-woven paraellel is the story of Ron McGorvey, a sex offender who has moved back into his mother's house, smack in the middle of this quiet sea of domesticity.

As before, I was overwhelmed by the book's sense of longing, how well it captured unsatisfactory lives and the imperfect magic of an illicit relationship. It was forboding too, with a deep baseline of dread. The action all takes place in the hot, humid, sparkling days of summer - the perfect time to imagine your life as something else. The book's settings are all hazy, shiny, hot. This isn't a real place - its an imagined place, just as their romance is imagined. In a way, the characters have to imagine their reality because they've told themselves over and over that "this isn't real. I couldn't really spend all my time with a 3-year-old. Pretty soon I'll get back to my real life." To really believe that they've found themselves in this place at this time is impossibly dull. As the reader it's easy to be both swept up in their fantasy while also fearful of the inevitable crash back to earth. The storyline of "the pervert" is a simple and obvious red flag that alerts your sense of fear but then makes you hyper-aware of all the possible danger spots.

I liked this book quite a bit - it was an engaging page-turner and I was anxious to see it all play out. Most of all, it felt like a primer for why to not end up in a marriage, life, location, role, career that you hate. Not a step-by-step guide, but a big 'ole warning. I'm sure that's a huge over-simplification of its message, but I read (and enjoyed) it as such.

(less)

Like this review? yes (6 people liked it)

1 comment

06/22/07

Jason Pettus rated it:

Read in June, 2007

(Full review can be found at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

For better or for worse, there are a small collection of writers out there who can be called "movie authors," for lack of a better term; those who have had multiple novels adapted into films now, because of writing screenplay-friendly books or having an amazing agent or whatever the reason. And as far as the traditional literary world, these writers can be found scattered all t...more (Full review can be found at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

For better or for worse, there are a small collection of writers out there who can be called "movie authors," for lack of a better term; those who have had multiple novels adapted into films now, because of writing screenplay-friendly books or having an amazing agent or whatever the reason. And as far as the traditional literary world, these writers can be found scattered all the way through the food chain: from those who are highly respected in the academic community (like Michael Cunningham, for example, author of both The Hours and A Home At the End of the World), to those whose books can scarcely be called literature in the first place (like Ira Levin, author of the "screenplay novels" Sliver and Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives and The Boys From Brazil...whew!), to of course all the Stephen Kings and John Grishams and Michael Crichtons of the world, who have an odd mishmash of both mainstream and literary audiences.

And it might surprise some, but I'm actually a fan of several movie authors; I mean, you know, as long as you take them in the right context, and understand that the books are pretty quick reads that lend themselves to simple scripts, there are actually some pretty decent writers out there who happen to have had several manuscripts that have been shipped off to Hollywood. Take Tom Perrotta, for example, author of Election, which was made into a highly successful movie in 1999, and was in fact arguably the film that turned Reese Witherspoon into a bona-fide star; and whose book I just happened to read a number of years ago on one of those dreary Saturdays we have here in Chicago, where you want to do nothing more than read random books for free for eight hours in one of those superstores while lounging around their cafe, thin books that you would never want to actually spend money to read. And Election, to tell you the truth, turned out not only to be a lot better than I was expecting, but so much different than the movie; the original novel is quite the serious drama, as a matter of fact, not the farcical comedy the adapted screenplay turned out to be. I mean, don't get me wrong, both versions are entertaining; just that the book has a gravitas I wasn't expecting, a much darker and more pessimistic outlook towards humanity, that I really respected after thinking it was going to be a goofy Hollywood-friendly comedy.

So when I learned last year that Perrotta was also the author of Little Children, made recently into an Oscar-nominated drama starring Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley and others, I ended up...(less)

Like this review? yes (5 people liked it)

4 comments

05/10/08

Sarah rated it:

bookshelves: general-fiction

Read in June, 2008

I was disturbed by the topics raised in this book not so much because I am a prude but rather because I'm an idealist. Perhaps I am a bit naive but I'd certainly like to think that infidelity is less common place than the literary world makes it seem. Perrota definitely likes to incorporate sexuality into his writing and Little Children is no exception. Oddly, I found the characterization of the convicted child molester less unsettling than the pantie-sniffing web surfer or his wife's affair. We...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

2 comments

04/07/08

Brooke Miller rated it:

Read in May, 2007

While not every aspect of the story necessarily rings true, Perotta does a fantastic job of creating a secret world between Sarah and Todd, using the characters' own flaws to develop his story and build suspense. Personally, I don't know that the sex-offender subplot did much for the story and I could've done without it, particularly considering its overall "preachy" tone (which may be unavoidable when writing about so delicate a subject). While I can appreciate that the idea was to ...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

03/07/08

Gemma rated it:

Read in July, 2004

Man, I have a difficult time with this book (especially in light of recently seeing the movie). Perrotta uses his usual awkward grace in developing awkward characters, and created a novel more complete and thoughtful than any of his previous ones. He still has some of the same problems as in his earlier novels (the random addition of a secondary or tertiary character's perspective for just one brief segment, for convenience in the plot, is as annoying here as it is in Election), but I felt lik...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

07/25/07

Carol rated it:

Read in June, 2008

This has got to be the first time in my entire life that I thought the movie version of something was better than the book. Yes, I saw the movie first, and perhaps that influenced me. But, man, Tom Perrotta is a crappy writer. I felt like he was just punching a clock here--so much of the writing was dull, cliched, and lifeless.

Not only that, the movie managed to create complexity in the characters where the book did not. For instance, the movie actually managed to make me feel sorry...more

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

1 comment

03/30/09

Barbara rated it:

(review of isbn 0312315716)

Read in April, 2009

Tom Perrotta's novel, "Little Children", might well be entitled, "Parents", for it focuses on the lives of several married couples living the suburban lifestyle. The title could very well refer to the immature actions and decisons of these people and the tenuous bonds which they have formed in their marriages.Indeed, the children are loved, but the story that unfolds tells of adultery, pornography, and often many failures to acheive any realistic goals in thier lives. To comp...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

1 comment

07/17/08

Heather rated it:

Read in November, 2007

I really liked this novel--intelligently constructed, defined characters, realistic resolution. I did not, however, enjoy the story. I think there was too much going on--the sex offender, while definitely a part of the story, was more an afterthought. The same could be said for Larry Moon--his existence is so tertiary, you have to wonder if he wasn't created solely to torment Ronnie McGorvey.

The true meat of this tale is the love affair between Sarah and Todd, with less emphasis on t...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

06/25/08

JoAnn/QuAppelle rated it:

Another good book from Tom Perrotta. I've read all his books--- just bought his "Bad Haircut" and am looking forward to reading it now.
The cast of characters in "Little Children" are people that we all have known--- but we were not clever enough to write a book about them! Perrotta is a great observer of the human condition and depicted these have-it-all suburbanites and their lives perfectly in this satire. Every one is dissatisfied and is looking for a way out of thei...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

04/20/08

Izlinda rated it:

bookshelves: general-fiction-literature

Read in February, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

The movie itself was one I loved, so I thought to see if the book attracted me as well.

I liked this book very much as I thought it was a morally ambiguous story. It delves deeper into the characters' various stories.

Sarah, the bored housewife with a daughter she doesn't seem to like, with a bisexual tendency but married due to fear of boredom and being stuck in a rut.
Todd (known as Brad in the movie) who is the "prom king" with a son he adores and a bar...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

04/04/08

Julia rated it:

Read in May, 2008

recommended to Julia by: Frank G!

I'm beginning to notice a pattern: I started reading The Abstinence Teacher on a flight, and was so absorbed that I spent the entire next day at home, finishing the bulk of it in one day - which is SO unusual for me (I usually take weeks to finish even the easiest books). About the same thing happened with this one - covering about 80 pages on slow subways, I finished it on the following day home sick from work - staying up late to get through the last, terrifyingly suspenseful pages. No wonde...more I'm beginning to notice a pattern: I started reading The Abstinence Teacher on a flight, and was so absorbed that I spent the entire next day at home, finishing the bulk of it in one day - which is SO unusual for me (I usually take weeks to finish even the easiest books). About the same thing happened with this one - covering about 80 pages on slow subways, I finished it on the following day home sick from work - staying up late to get through the last, terrifyingly suspenseful pages. No wonder this was made into a movie.

Shockingly, I really loved this book, even though the characters never ceased to revolt me. You've got a couple adulterers, a child molester, his depressed mother who is waiting to die, a bunch of gross football players, numerous unhappy wives and husbands, internet porn, the whole deal. Conclusion: suburbia is CREEPY. Everyone is miserable, and these poor three- and four- year olds are disturbingly innocent witnesses to their parents' unraveling. Perotta paints a bleak picture. However bleak and SCARY (nothing more bone chilling to me than a young child's disappearance), Perotta's exposition of plot and character are way up to snuff.

After I finished, once I calmed my heart rate and assured myself that the doors and windows were locked, I experience a very similar train of thought as after finishing The Abstinence Teacher. How urgent/present is Perotta's moral imperative? It is obvious that homeboy is critical of religion, and the institution of marriage - though his exact criticism is unclear to me. Most of his characters are divorced, in the middle of a divorce, on the brink of divorce, experiencing a longing for past "glory days" or repeatedly going over "what would/could have been." If I had to guess, his "message" is not a moral imperative but rather a quiet call to investigate the accepted wisdom on how a middle class life progresses. Or maybe he just thinks that people's lives are interesting and sad and wants to write a good story.

(less)

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

1 comment

04/01/08

Alix Méav rated it:

bookshelves: novels

Read in January, 2008

I read Little Children after a friend recommended it to me and after I read the actual novel that inspired the movie Election.

Little Children is a fantastic book to read when you're in your mid-to-late 20's-early 30's. There was something about the book to me that made me very uncomfortable in some parts because I could recognise my own fears of getting older, being a graduate student, and the possibility that so many years of schooling could amount to absolutely zero.

Pe...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

03/25/08

Adrienne rated it:

(review of isbn 0312315716)

Read in February, 2008

recommended to Adrienne by: Christine Z.
recommends it for: people who are sometimes cynical, independent women

a laugh-out-loud tale from a new jersey author. (lines like the one about the patron saint of the failed bar exam are priceless.) was like reading a version of "desperate housewives" that could inspire intellectual conversations about psychology, as the characters seemed more like exaggerations than actual people to me, and they spend most of their time in the vacuum that is their suburb.

i think this book struck a chord with me b/c i am a few years younger than some of the ...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

02/12/08

Mark rated it:

Read in February, 2008

So far this year, I've been doing a great job of picking out books exactly in line with my tastes. This Tom Perrotta book was an enjoyable quick read, an appropriate change of pace after "The Denial of Death," which was the last thing I read--and a book I had a hard time getting my mind off of, days afterwards. Perrotta writes in a relatively straight-forward manner, with lots of dialogue. Lots of really fucking GREAT dialogue.

The story is about a few early-thirties-aged ...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

01/19/08

Pdmc30 rated it:

Read in January, 2008

I really enjoyed the film adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s novel Little Children, which was smart, well executed without relying on stereotypes and clichés while taking a look at suburban America. The same can be said of his novel. I guess I was first interested in reading one of his novels, when I read that he wrote both Little Children and Election-from which two excellent films were made. His latest, The Abstinence Teacher also sounds quite intriguing. I have to say that the adaptation was pre...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

11/14/07

Brian rated it:

I don't remember where I heard about this book, but I do remember that I put it on my reading list because it was essentially about the "secret" lives of stay-at-home parents who visit the local playground with their kids. Tom Perrotta does a great job showing us the needs and desires of these parents, as they search for meaning (and love) in their lives. The characters are lots of fun too: Sarah, the former feminist who swore she wouldn't be the SAHM and ends up marrying an internet...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

08/26/07

Carolynn rated it:

Read in February, 2007

recommends it for: most readers

To be brief, this is a very well written piece, something I would call a dark comic drama. Not too unlike American Beauty (the movie). It deeply criticizes the suburban family in a way that is never excessive, just smart. The best asset of this tale is that it's satire is delivered through complex and unforgettable characters. Ones who get addicted to anti-child-molester comittees, parkbench gossip, and even panty-sniffing.

Truly a great read which most people I know on here will tota...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

08/24/07

Spring rated it:

bookshelves: bookclub

Read in September, 2007

It's a depressing book about the empty, selfish lives of people in the 'burbs. People looking for someone to save them from the reality of ordinary lives.

Quotes from the book:

"It wasn't that easy to tell one weekday from the next anymore; they all just melted together like a bag of crayons left out in the sun."

"I am a painfully ordinary person ... destined to live a painfully ordinary life."

"If there was one thing life had ...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 448 449 next »

polls

What's our December pick?
NOTE: If you offered a pick, you gotta vote for someone else's book.

Fortress of Solitude - Jonathan Lethem

4 votes, 36.4%

Magic for Beginners - Kelly Link

2 votes, 18.2%

The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison

1 vote, 9.1%

The Gathering - Anne Enright

0 votes, 0.0%

The City of Dreaming Books- Walter Moers

2 votes, 18.2%

Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

1 vote, 9.1%

The Rescue Artist A True Story of Art Thieves and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece - Edward Dolnick

1 vote, 9.1%

11 total votes

1 comment Sign in to vote!

More...

recent status updates | recommend it | blog it

combine
other editions (19)

More editions...

quotes from this book

"He'd never had to make the adjustments and compromises other people accepted early in their romantic careers; never had a chance to learn the lesson that Sarah taught him everyday--that beauty was only a part of it, and not even the most important part, that there were transactions between people that occurred on some mysterious level beneath the skin, or maybe even beyond the body." More quotes...