Just Wait Till You Have Children of Your Own!
Written by Erma Bombeck and Bil Keane
Narrated by Barbara Rosenblat
4/5
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About this audiobook
Erma Bombeck
Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) was one of the best-loved humorists of her day, known for her witty books and syndicated columns. In 1967, she published At Wit’s End, a collection of her favorite columns. Bombeck would go on to write eleven more books, including The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank (1976), If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? (1978), and Aunt Erma’s Cope Book (1979). Her books were perennial bestsellers, and helped bolster her reputation as one of the nation’s sharpest observers of domestic life. She continued writing her syndicated column until her death in 1996.
More audiobooks from Erma Bombeck
The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for Just Wait Till You Have Children of Your Own!
144 ratings122 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Delores' character is lovable and annoying at times. She's just like a real human, isn't she? :PBut anyways, really, there were some parts of the book where I'm just like "REALLY????" flabbergasted, and other times I was just like "Yes girl, take the higher road!" and just wanted to be like her in instances. Overall, it's a wonderful book that really gets you thinking about YOU at times because you reflect so much after.
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- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Awesome! Wally Lamb miraculously pulls this off--a man writing in first person from a woman's point of view. Totally convincing, I wonder how he has such an intimate understanding of the mind of women? I could relate to so much--Delores Price is my hero. I was able to mourn and celebrate some of my own victories and tribulations in the guise of rooting for the protagonist. This is a truly soul-nourishing work of fiction.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Well written and hard to put down, but pretty depressing.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book was FANTASTIC!!!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Could not put this one down. Operah has good taste.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This is a page turner for sure - but that does not equate to great writing my any means. Yes, the story has lots of unexpected twists and turns, but then it has several overly predictable "oh-I-can't-believe-he-just-went-there" moments. You become quite fond of Dolores, the main character - and you cheer for her on and off. However, there is such an overwhelming artificial grittyness to her, which makes her little more than the tired stereotype of the "self-destructing fat girl". Furthermore, the "in-your-face-sybmbolism" such as the beached whale scenario is so cheesy it almost hurts... Overall, a decent book for the beach or the stair master - but great literature it is not.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A favorite book by my favorite author. Not for the weak of heart.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fascinating book. I could not put it down. Not for everyone.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Listened to this on CD while driving to Charleston. I was crying so hard, I missed my exit and didn't realize until 30 minutes later! Very touching.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book remains one of my all-time favorites. I never wanted it to end and the story and the characters stayed with me for a very long time.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book was amazing. Wally Lamb did a great job of writing from a woman's point of view. Even if you dislike the protagonist, you end up rooting for her.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5It's been a long time since I have read this one; but I could read it over & over. Great story, I wish Wally Lamb would write more!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm not sure what made me pick up She's Come Undone and rip through it in less than two days, as I've always shied away from it before, thinking of it as one of those books about "Woman's Experience"--a topic which generally makes me cross (as if there could be such a thing). But I enjoyed She's Come Undone more than I expected to--the narrator's voice is engaging and pulls one right along, and Lamb creates characters and scenes seemingly effortlessly. The sentences read smoothly, and the novel is sophisticated in its movement. The final pages made me smile with happy satisfaction at the outcome of Dolores's story. But something bothered me throughout my reading, and I'm still unsure of what, exactly, was the problem. Perhaps it was the relentless parade of wretched human beings in the book, people who seemed uninterested or incapable of love in any of its guises and who were wholly uninteresting except in the specific ways they affected Dolores. Perhaps it was the wearying way nearly every man in the story was a misogynistic jerk. Or the disconnect I felt between the experience of Dolores, born in 1952 in Rhode Island, and my mother, born in 1951 in Pennsylvania. No reason, really, exists to think that two women of the same generation born in roughly the same part of the country would have similar experiences, but Dolores seemed to live in an entirely different world than the one my mother grew up in. Where were the kinds of good, loving, strong characters who inhabited Mom's stories of growing up in the fifties and sixties? Why was nearly every adult in Dolores's world so touched by and damaged by The Times In Which They Lived? Or perhaps it was that the events of the novel began to feel like a checklist of Bad Things That Happen to Women (I'm going to get a touch spoilery here). Dolores witnesses verbal and physical abuse against her mother by her father; sees her parents go through a divorce caused in some part by her father's adultery; watches her mother have a nervous breakdown, spend time in a mental hospital, then come home and engage in an affair with a married man; flirts with a handsome neighbor and then is raped by him at thirteen and convinced by him that "their" indiscretion is her fault; becomes mentally depressed and morbidly obese; experiences the death of her mother in a horrible traffic accident; is maliciously and sexually teased by a boy at a college party who then calls her horrible names and destroys her property when she fights back; nearly commits suicide; spends four years in a mental institution; marries a man who threatens to leave her if she does not abort their child; has an abortion she does not want; gets a divorce; and eventually must give up on her dream of bearing children. While Dolores does learn to stand up for herself and eventually finds happiness; loyal, loving friends; and a good man (and the moments when she has these breakthroughs are satisfying and exciting), this litany of misery began to feel a touch dishonest. It is not that I disbelieve that all of these things could happen to one person (and I will say that Lamb deals with each one beautifully), but that I began to suspect that these events existed in the novel for reasons that had little to do with story. And that put me off a bit. In the end, I was impressed by Lamb's handling of structure and sentences and, in some cases, character. But despite the satisfaction I felt in Dolores's eventual triumphs, I also felt manipulated by the novel. And that will always leave a sour taste in my mouth.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Warning! She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb will not let go of you until you finish the book. I have had this book on my shelf for a long time but decided to tackle it recently. My copy is 465 pages and not in big print but with dark ink, thank goodness.I have been reading books lately that have a common theme, obesity and dysfunctional families. Since I have always had a weight problem since I was twelve I am holding onto the main character, Dolores Price's tip to imagining mold on the food that you want to avoid. There is much more to this tornado of a book, starting when Dolores was only five years old when her father deserted his family, through having a mother dealing with mental illness. and only finding love through the consumption of food. If things got really bad, she would eat as fast as she could, trying to numb herself against a life that she could barely survive. She learns to protect herself with bad language and take outrageous revenge to even with people as she gets older. She has periods of understanding why she does things.What really amazes me is how Wally Lamb could write this book full of female problems without being female himself. Also he gets it so right with how people who are obese feel about themselves and also what it is like having a mother who is mentally ill and then also what the depths of depression is like. I had great difficulty in putting this book down and I am very impressed with his convincing writing. At times I wanted to tell Delores, " No, stop and think about this first before you do it but she didn't listen to me!I highly recommend this very emotional coming of age journey to everyone.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I read this book based on a friend's recommendation. I really struuggled to get through the book. There was nothing that kept me turning the page to see what happens next. It felt like the book was endless. To be far to the book, I've never encountered the hardships that Dolores faces so maybe I don't have the rigt perspective, but I found it hard to continue to read about a character who spent so much time wallowing in self pity. I wanted to shake her and say "Get over it!!" It sort of felt like a small childs endless story with no seeming plot. Just a series of "And then....." With that being said, I applaud the author's way of bringing me to the time period of the book. I've never seen (or even heard of) most of the TV shows that Dolores watched, but I felt like I had. I loved Dolores' Grandma even before Dolores did. I wanted Dolores to go to college, to lose the weight, to fall in love and have a family. I plan to return this book to my friend with a polite thank you but I will not be forwarding the recommendation to anyone else.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5This book was all around insulting. Is this Mr Lamb's idea of the way women act, think and feel? Very disappointing.
Assuming that he didn't mean to generalise and that very well may be a woman like the main character somewhere in the world, even then the book crossed a line. It was too much, not only everything that could go wrong to her did go wrong but it all happened in an entirely predictable way.
If you're going to write an unsympathetic main character the story has to make up for it. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Covering everything from rape to homosexuality to mental illnes, Wally Lamb's book presents a fascinating and heart-felt heroine's life journey through many crisises in her attempt to find peace and respect. A stunning and wide reaching work, particularly so considering that the author is male. The plot is a little hard to believe in some points, and this book can be downright depressing, but in the end the main character's voice manages to leave an impression that lasts beyond the last page and strong message of redemption and hope.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This 1992 novel had a lot of attention in the 1990's but I never felt inclined to read it until now. It tells the story of Dolores Price who is a thoroughly messed up person, whose life goes from one crisis to another. Her parents get divorced, she comes to hate her father, she is raped at 13, has a horrible high school time, is forced to go to college, where she is shunned because she is obese, runs away from college, her mother is killed, she ends up in a mental institution, spends years seeing a psychiatrist, maneuvers to meet her old roommate's boyfriend and immediately fornicates with him, has an abortion, marries the boyfriend, comes to be very unhappy with him, they get divorced, she does many stupid things and is a very annoying character. The end is inconclusive and non-definitive. There are few admirable characters in the book and the language is often foul. I could not like the book and I suppose the only good thing about reading it is that now I know what a depressing thing it is.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I liked this book. A lot of the scenarios are a little over the top, but then again, I like that sort of thing which is why I prefer fiction books over non-fiction. I did like Lamb's other novel better though-- I Know This Much is True.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Definately not a "feel good" book. Although the story is good, it starts out depressing and doesn't let up. This is definately not my favorite Wally Lamb book
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wally Lamb is the most interesting, amazing author I've read yet. This book is very hard to put down and the last hundred pages kept me spellbound waiting to see what would happen yet.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book is really strange but also really good.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This was an interesting book, but I found the narrator was drawn so hard that I couldn't completely forgive her all her faults, regardless of her struggles. Wally Lamb does a pretty good job writing through the eyes of a woman, but something still felt incomplete. Worth a read, but only one.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sad, depressing, funny and hopeful all in one. Lots of good one liners to live by... ( thought about how love was always the thing that did that- smashed into you, left you raw. The deeper you loved, the deeper it hurt) ....puttin' rain in my eyes tears in my dreams and rocks in my heart-Billie Holiday. (What might make you happy? asked the professor. " Small thighs" "My boyfriend finding my G spot" "Prince Charming" Allyson hooked her bare feet around the chair in front of her. "Prince Charming locating my G spot between my thin thighs" And of course this one " Our day will come If we just wait awhile...
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A wonderful journey for anyone who has ever stuggled with weight.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I read the book, I liked the book but I cannot even begin to tell you how annoying and depressing the character of Delores was throughout the book.I mean I just wanted to really, you know, slap the eyebrows off her face. Yes she went through some trying times but the negativity was overwhelming, just too much but really, what more can you expect but gosh...SLAP! ok much better.Wally Lamb is wonderful and deserves to be read. But Delores, she needs to come undone with a big 'ole snap out of it slap.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I read this several years ago, so I'm a little fuzzy on the storyline, but I do remember I liked it. (yeah, that was super helpful.. you're welcome)
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It's probably no accident that the heroine of Wally Lamb's engaging first novel, "She's Come Undone," is named Dolores, just like Nabokov's young heroine, Dolores Haze, better known as Lolita. The plot lines of these novels also have some obvious similarities, since both heroines are raped by sociopathic older men posing as father figures. But whereas Nabokov's Lolita comes undone from this experience, Lamb's Dolores becomes a survivor after being a victim. She has a lot to overcome: the unraveling of her parents' marriage; her difficult relationship with her mother; being raped at a young age; being ostracized by her peers at school. Dolores copes with her difficulties by rewarding herself with food, but predictably, overeating only adds to her problems. Even the man she falls in love with and eventually marries turns out to be nothing more than a narcissist in love with her adulation rather than with her. Yet by the end of the narrative, the heroine becomes stronger and more self-sufficient rather than weaker because of her troubles.The best contemporary fiction, it seems, offers us two Aristotelian alternatives, as an escape from the humdrum of our lives: heroes that are somehow better than us and who can inspire us or antiheroes whose lives are so disastrous and whose problems are so heart-wrenching that they make our own lives seem downright easy by comparison. In "She's Come Undone," Wally Lamb magically manages to do both at once, which is not an easy task. This master of psychological fiction depicts a compelling heroine who is first defeated, only to rise above the worst life has to offer.Claudia Moscovici, Notablewriters.com
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I read this book after hearing everyone in one of my book groups rave about it. Well, I don't know why. I read about 50 pages of it and then it got thrown to the wall.Back Cover Blurb:In his extraordinary coming of age odyssey, Wally Lamb invites us to hitch a wild ride on a journey of love, pain and renewal. At once a fragile girl and a hard-edged cynic, so tough to love yet so inimitably loveable, Dolores Price is as poignantly real as our own imperfections.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I loved this book and just like "I Know This Much Is True" - I couldn't put it down. Wally Lamb's weaves a story with very strong characters; his characters always seem so tragic and in so much pain; I am always rooting for them! As a New Englander, I particularly enjoy that his books take place across an area I know very well and can relate to. There aren't many books that transport me but his books definitely do.