Search - Little Children

riveting; interesting and pathetic and comical characters; multi-layered plot; sad commentary on parenthood, careers, sacrifice, unfulfilled dreams; the realization of past greatness confronting the present mediocrity of life. A fast read.

I picked this up at the bookstore in 2006 having heard nothing about it and having no preconceptions. I am so glad that I did because it was a fantastic novel. I was hooked from the beginning of the book. The plot line, involving several characters, continued to be fascinating throughout.

I saw the "Little Children" movie recently and the movie came close to living up to the quality of the book, which is very rare.

I highly recommend this book by Tom Perrotta.

This one wasn't for me. Thought it was pure smut. Is this what people want to read? Where is the author's mind? This could have been a good read, without all the trash talk & some of the ugly topics. Guess I am an exception, but I'd stay away from novels like this, therefore I want it off my bookshelf. Recommend it to my book club? Not on your life! What's happened to the morals of our litary world!!!

Little Children takes us into the lives of a group of 30-something parents who all have young children. They live in a sleepy suburban neighborhood. One summer, a convicted child molester moves into the neighborhood and two parents start up an affair. And (as they say) "there goes the neighborhood."

Perrotta is a master of pacing and I love the stories he tells. He slows it down just enough to make it suspenseful without without boring the reader. I will say that the most difficult parts to read dealt with the convicted child molester, I'm a parent of little children myself and I cringed whenever it was his turn in the book. (Perrotta does the storytelling from varying viewpoints in this book). Though I think I had more disdain for the husband who was really into his internet porno fantasy world and the retired cop.

Yes, yes, we know that Perrotta is calling the book 'Little Children' because the parents are all acting like little children. But the characaters he's created are so real and (maybe overly) flawed that it's hard to not believe what they believe while still knowing it's not what it seems - for any of them. But they continue to kid themselves and to deny what we can all see. Or maybe they can see it too.

I can't say that I despised this book or its characters, because there are certainly books I've read which I've felt worse about. However, I had a lot of difficulty getting through it. All of the characters seemed completely miserable in their lives, and that's just something that I've never been able to stand to read about.

I read this for a book group, and after going to the meeting, felt a little bit better about it, but not by much. There were some nuances which I had not considered, but overall, I still didn't like it.

Additionally, this book is completely miscategorized (which may or may not be a word) under "Gay and Lesbian". One of the characters once had a same-sex relationship years ago, during college, and it was barely mentioned. I'm not saying I was expecting lurid sex scenes or anything, but I was expecting something more than what was present.

I wasn't too sure about this book in the beginning. But, it grew on me. I missed the funny parts though. I thought it was kind of dark , but still held my interest.