Search - I Know This Much Is True

This book is very long and once you get past the beginning, it becomes very interesting. It is about twin brothers, one who is mentally disturbed and the other who just struggles with life trying to cope with his brother's problems. It leads you through a winding road of psychological hardship on both men and how one brother uses his other brother's illness to help himself.

This is a great read. If you have ever had to deal with loss and redemption (some day you will) this is a gratifying sage to id with. Its a large book but keeps you interested and turning one more page before you lay it down.

One of my all time favorite books. Starts out kind of slow, but if you hang in there, you will be very pleased. It is an epic tale, filled with emotion, inspiration, heartbreak...all the elements you could ever want in a book.

I loved She's Come Undone, and I remember being astounded that a male author had written that so beautifully from a female perspective. I Know This Much is True is written from a male perspective, a super manly angry man's perspective. I have twins so I'm a sucker for anything about twins, but I really think this book could have benefited by being shorter. Wally Lamb does an amazing job telling the sprawling story about twins Thomas (crazy) and (comparatively sane) Dominick and their Ma (Concettina Pasqualina Tempesta Birdsey). The author details the backgrounds and histories of narrator Dominick's ex-wife Dessa and her rich Greek family of local car dealership wealth and fame, including her new boyfriend Dan the artist and her younger sister Angie who is married to narrator Dominick's best friend Leo... also narrator Dominick's live-in girlfriend Joy and her best friend the Duchess... he details the background and history of pretty much everybody imaginable and that's why this book is 897 pages long. Every time I thought to myself, "oh that's an interesting foible the author points out about such-and-such a character, and then 300 pages later I would be saddened to see that same foible repeated in reference to so-and-so a character in the past or of far-reaching relevance. I just got tired out and eager for the book to end. To be fair, the author does do a good job of redemption and loose end tying at the very end but by then my attention was just spent.

I loved Wally Lamb's book She's Come Undone so I decided to try another book by him and that's how I came across I Know This Much Is True. It was really, really long. The story dragged on and on at times. I would have given this book 4 or 5 stars if Lamb would have edited out 400+ pages which would have been very easy for him to do. The content would not have been affected at all.

I didnt think this book deserved quite the level of praise and fanfare surrounding it, but was still an interesting read. I found myself wanting more action in plot in certain sections and had trouble identifing with the characters, but there were portions that were quite good. Didnt love it, not the worst thing i've read.