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Sep 20, 2010

Paul rated it:

Six months after the death of Joyce Carol Oates a couple of her fans will visit her grave. Just underneath the keening mournful almost-Canadian wind as they stand by the graveside they will hear to their consternation a little tiptappy scratching noise. From underground. They will run run run to get the caretaker who will get the police who will get the bigger police. They'll all hear the sound. Tippytappy, scritchscratch. They'll hum and haw, and then they'll exhume the body. When they crack op More...

21 comments like (36 people liked it)

Oct 12, 2007

Anna rated it:

This book is about a large family, the Mulvaneys, living all happily and blahblahblah until something terrible happens to the sole daughter. Although the book is basically about this event and the aftermath, it takes about 100 pages to actually get to the plot. The beginning of the book goes on about the Mulvaneys and how wonderful they were, describing their house and its inhabitants with a little too much detail. Most chapters had this basic formula: Narraration of some memory a character had/ More...

2 comments like (15 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Sammy rated it:

By the end of this book I was crying. I just want to start with that and get it cleared out of the way. It wasn't just a sniff and the threat of tears, I had actual tears running down my face and snot streaming out of my nose. I was leaking enough that I actually had to put the book down and go grab some tissues.

This book is very emotional, not just with how it makes the reader feel, but with how it's written. There was something unique about Oates writing that reflected a purely More...

4 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 02, 2007

Grant rated it:

i didn't like it much. i am a big fan of her stories. it opened well, but once the event happens, which the books turns on, it falls apart and i lost interest in the characters. i think there are novels that should be long stories. its because the theme is great, but the plot, the characters, the story do not need the length of a novel to develop. and instead do not stand under the weight of that much scrutiny. i liked the movie brokeback mountain by proulx [sic], but her short story was a More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

May 13, 2008

Ann rated it:

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1 comment like (9 people liked it)

Aug 15, 2007

Clare rated it:

I really needed Joyce Carol Oates to give me a break on this one. I was still reeling from the horrible experience I had of accidentally reading part of "Zombie" but I was prepared to try to forgive her. But even though no one in this book gave anyone else an ice-pick lobotomy, it was entirely devoid of any heart, hope, or mercy. I just don't need this in my life - there's nothing about this book stylistically that elevates it above its oppressively miserable story.

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Apr 08, 2011

Rea rated it:

It is extremely, extremely rare that I don’t finish a book. I actually had to create the ‘Abandoned’ shelf specifically for this book. But after 106 pages I’m not going to waste my time reading the remaining 348; if you can’t grasp your reader after 100 pages you never will.

So what was wrong with it? The writing is absolutely atrocious, it reads like it hasn’t been edited. It is laboriously repetitive, Carol Dates seemingly forgetting what she has written from chapter to chapter. De More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 22, 2008

Julie rated it:

I have seen this movie on TV several times and finally found the book at the library. I was suprised at how long it was...nearly 500 pages...but I was excited to finally be reading it. In this novel, Oates tells the story of a near-perfect family...mom and dad in love, 4 loving siblings, all living in a small town on a farm filled with love and animals. Everything is going along fine until the only daughter, who is beautiful and universally loved, suffers a tragedy. From this point on, the entir More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 28, 2008

Sherry rated it:

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6 comments like (5 people liked it)

Oct 26, 2011

Jessica rated it:

This book starts off slowly, with sweeping descriptions of the landscape and the perfection of the Mulvaney family's idyllic life on their farm in upstate New York. It picks up, though, and the real story begins as the family's perfect facade is destroyed.

Essentially, this is the story of how a single event, and our reactions to it, can shape our entire lives. The lone Mulvaney daughter, Marianne, is raped following her junior prom. The attacker is never brought to justice and the s More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 06, 2008

Leigh rated it:

This was the first Oates novel I read (as opposed to her short stories, which I liked), and it didn't do much for me. It's a very cultivated, cohesive book--never more strikingly than in the parallelism between the first and last lines, both of which echo the title--and yet something doesn't click. It's a little too cultivated and cohesive, a little artificial. The characters shade into stereotypes: Mike the jock, Patrick the bright loner, Marianne the pure-hearted and wronged daughter, and Judd More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 31, 2008

Christy rated it:

I haven't read much by Oates and had heard alot about this one. Unfortunately, I didn't know the story line. But, when she started referring to "it" happening, I was extremely curious. But, the "it" is a date rape of a teenager. I almost threw the book across the room...the same feeling I had the prior week with Jodi Picoult's The Tenth Circle because it also deals with a teenage rape.

I am biased about this, I will admit. But two books in one week about rape? More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 03, 2008

Olanma rated it:

You need patience to read this..for it takes about 5 chapters to get into this book, that's the downside of it. The first couple chapters are about family this, family that but as you read on, things take a turn and its a book that you cannot put down. It took me about 5 months to get through the first couple chapters, I kept putting it away, reading other stuff, going to school..but i felt like i had to give the book a chance and once you get through all that family stuff, you'll find yoursel More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Brenna rated it:

wow, was this sad. something horrible happens to a daughter of a family that regards themselves as pretty much the happiest people they know, and as a result the family starts to unravel. the parents act the worst. their choices seemed somewhat unbelievable, which made it easier to read. after i'd decided the parents were unbelievable and was able to step back a bit, i felt a tad manipulated by the author's narrative flow, which dragged things out and chopped up storylines, and by the sad subjec More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 15, 2011

Kevin rated it:

First an admission of how I read this book. I happened to find it in a thrift store for 99 cents, and I read it daily on my bus trip to and from work. Reading it daily, but only a few pages at a time may or may not have colored the way I view it.

If you are looking for a quick read, full of action, plot and intrigue, this is not the book for you.

But if you are looking for a writer at the top of her game, taking the time to set her story in intricate, though necessary, set More...

0 comments like

Oct 27, 2011

Kristen rated it:

Although this book was fairly easy to read, it was also extremely too intricate in details that I didn't think were very important to the main plot. I wanted to just skip over all of the paragraphs about simple things like someone brushing a horse or someone else walking around their house. The whole book does an awesome job in creating a picture of the whole town, family, and everything that happened. I could picture the whole book in my head, which, I loved, but also, it didn't "move" More...

0 comments like

Oct 27, 2011

Roberta rated it:

We were the Mulvaneys

Eravamo i Mulvaney, vi ricordate di noi?

Una famiglia americana è una saga familiare. I Mulvaney sono una famiglia perfetta, genitori e quattro figli (tre maschi, una ragazza) una valanga di animali e amici a High Point Farm, una stupenda fattoria color lavanda nello stato di New York. La voce narrante della storia è il figlio minore, Judd, l'ultimo vagone della famiglia, pregno della sensazione di essersi perso qualcosa (i ricordi, la condivisione di mome More...

0 comments like

Jul 30, 2011

Josh added it

A sprawling novel detailing the rise and fall of an American family who live out on a farm in a small town suburb, in a community at once small enough to be cozy and claustrophobic at the same time.

The Mulvaneys are a well-liked and respected family, commanding the kind of regard bordering on envy. And it is arguably that baser sentiment which unleashes the uglier side of human nature when the family falls from grace.

Something scandalous happens to the Mulvaney's only daughter, Marianne, and t More...

0 comments like

Jun 14, 2011

Daryl rated it:

I’ve long wanted to read something by Joyce Carol Oates, other than the one short story that I’m familiar with (the frequently anthologized “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”). I picked up We Were the Mulvaneys at a used book sale sponsored by my local library. It’s the one Oates book I’ve seen often in used book stores, I think because it was an Oprah book club selection. Probably sold a lot of extra copies due to that, some of which end up in used stores. I have to extend thanks to Op More...

0 comments like

Mar 14, 2011

Debik rated it:

We Were the Mulvaneys is a hard read. It is so real. Their pain. Their loss. Their search for healing.

That said, it is a beautifully written book. You share the love AND pain of this family in the aftermath of a crisis. Anyone who has ever lived through their own crisis knows that your life is ever after divided into "before" and "after". We Were the Mulvaneys is mostly dealing with the after, although the author gives us just enough of the before to unders More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 25, 2011

Josh rated it:

A sprawling novel detailing the rise and fall of an American family who live out on a farm in a small town suburb, in a community at once small enough to be cozy and claustrophobic at the same time.

The Mulvaneys are a well-liked and respected family, commanding the kind of regard bordering on envy. And it is arguably that baser sentiment which unleashes the uglier side of human nature when the family falls from grace.

Something scandalous happens to the Mulvaney's only d More...

0 comments like

Jan 08, 2011

Jackie rated it:

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0 comments like

Dec 01, 2010

Karla added it

"Ranger's the baby of the family but he's got some surprises for us. Wait and see."(pg. 19)) Ranger was just one of the few nicknames the narrator distinguish himself, from the rest of his family. A family that was united and comfortable within each other, a family that many envied. Judd, also known as Ranger, is the narrator of his own story, but also plays a huge roll on the events that occur. When a tragic situation occurs with Marianne, Judd's older sister, the family is de More...

0 comments like

Nov 29, 2010

Danielle rated it:

We were the Mulvaneys is an extraordinary book that explains the hardships that a family had to go through in order to truly show the love they had for one another. In the beginning the family seemed to have everything; they all loved one another and everything seemed to be perfect. This all changed after the daughter, Marianne was raped. This tragic event causes the family to go through some tough obstacles, that include losing their house, farm, etc. The dad was a good man, but when he found o More...

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Nov 30, 2010

Lisbet rated it:

“Not long ago Michael Sr. had been capable of sleeping through gale force winds; now he slept fitfully, only a few hours at a time. He’d become so addicted to his dammed cigarettes, he’d awake every three or four hours to go downstairs to smoke” (Pg 167) this was the result of him knowing that his beautiful daughter Marianne was hurt and couldn’t bare the pain. The Mulvaneys were a happy family who were united and other people had wished they were more like them. Michael, Marianne’s father would More...

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Oct 31, 2010

Joy rated it:

I read an Oates book many years ago and did not like it, so it has taken me a long time to come back to her. I gave this book a high rating mainly because it is one I'll long remember. It's a sad family story -- who had so much good going for all of them before things got so very bad. There was a lesson to be learned in not letting one bad event cause the whole family to spiral down. The book developed the characters very well, they were believable and sypathetic. This was an interesting pe More...

0 comments like

Aug 27, 2010

Erin rated it:

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0 comments like

Aug 19, 2010

Harmonybites rated it:

I'd tried Oates before: her novel Black Water as well as some of her short stories. Just never clicked with her. Oates still leaves me cold after this soap opera.

Much of her style irritates me. Oates overuses the exclamation point. She indulges too often in the post-modern habit of piling on lists rather than the carefully chosen detail. So many details and description that made me want to skim or just struck me as wrong. (A cat is named "E.T."--in 1974 in terms of the sto More...

0 comments like

Jun 26, 2010

Sandy rated it:

Marianne and her father Michael, Sr., are the pivotal characters in this novel of family life set in 1970s upstate New York. After Marianne is raped by a classmate at a Valentine's Day dance in 1976, the family literally disintegrates as they struggle to cover "it" up. Out of a need to avoid the horror of this experience, Mrs. Mulvaney sends Marianne away, making it easier for her beloved husband to avoid the truth of family life--and to avoid many other truths of family life.

More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 07, 2010

Sharyl rated it:

We Were the Mulvaneys, by Joyce Carol Oates, is a haunting book. I say that because I've finished two novels since this one, but I'm still thinking about the Mulvaneys. It's a tragedy that begins by describing a seemingly ideal family in the 1970s, living in a small town in New York. Michael Mulvaney, Sr. and his wife Corinne are the parents of four really good kids--"Mule" or Mike, Jr., the star quarterback of the local football team, Patrick, the slighter, brooding future valedictori More...

2 comments like

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