The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb

Whoa Nelly. The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb took me a whopping eight weeks finish. At 723 hard cover pages, I suppose that respectable, but I'll tell you, one sprained wrist later, I wish I had saved this for a leisurely five-hour train ride to Montreal. I should have known it would take me a while to read: when I read She's Come Undone, it was the same thing. In fact, a lot of similarities pop up, including the song singing issue.

Anyway, on to the book. It is dense. Columbine, Civil war, Vietnam, Katrina... all in there. Not to mention depression, child molestation, rape, adultery and only one sort-of-happy ending to be had. Yet, somehow, in all that, I didn't shed a single tear.

I like Wally Lamb, I really do, but something about his writing always holds me at arms-length. And maybe that's a good thing. Maybe if I were completely immersed, I'd want to slit my wrists or something. The flip side is, of course, that despite 723 pages, I never really got to care about these characters.

There's lots to read in the world, and I'm glad I read this book. But I woudn't read it again.