Book Reviews of 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.

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!!!

I just finished this book and I absolutely LOVED it. It was gripping and got me interested in the first 5 pages, and then I couldn't put it down. At first I was a little dissapointed about the ending because it was so vague & ambigous and the more I think about it the more I come to appreciate it. I think if the author clarified anymore it would have ruined the whole feel of the book. Basically, this is a must 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.

I really enjoyed this book, and wasn't surprised to find out it was by the author of Election (which also became a movie). It's dark, a little bit wry, but gripping and compassionate. I enjoy books with lots of people that with interwoven storylines and this definitely satisfied me as a reader.

This was a perfectly trashy-type novel for me to esacpe from my life into. Thank you, Tom Perrotta! Absolutely great, concise writing, extremely image-oriented. Well-built story. Perfect time-out. Salacious. I didn't want to put it down. Read it!

I saw the film before reading the book, and for the first time that I can remember, I liked it better than the novel. That's not to say the book isn't good - it's quite good. A very good read.

This book was a good read. It was entertaining, funny, and heartbreaking all at the same time.

The plot was interesting enough to keep me reading it. It was really the characterization that caused me to dislike the book. Every character had a whiny inner monolog about their sex life. It was pathetic.

This was a really good book - from the moment I received it in the mail, I had to keep reading it. Highly suggested!!

This book was well-written. That being said, I thought it was creepy and nasty. None of the characters held my interest or my sympathy for very long, and I ended up not finishing it. I found nothing redeeming or of lasting value in what I did read - just a well-written piece of trash.

I saw the movie, then decided to read the book. Although they both followed eachother very well, I found that I like the ending better in the movie than the book.

I loved this book and couldn't put it down. Perrotta provides an intersting look at modern suburbia, stay-at-home parents, and marraiges. I can't wait to read more of his books!

I enjoyed this book, and now want to see the movie! The characters are interesting, everyone is flawed in their own way, which made the book full of color and texture- there were no clear heros in the book, just a bunch of people that made mistakes in married life, parenthood, and other 'bad life choices'. It was a quick read, and i found myself looking forward to finding out what was going to happen next to the people in the story, which to me is a sign of a great book. I like Tom Perrotta's writing style, it is hip, current and entertaining.

This book was surprisingly good.

I really enjoyed this book. It was an interesting group of characters and the book was written so you could see everything from all of their points of view. I highly recommend it!

I loved this book. And loved the movie even more.

I had a hard time getting into the book at the beginning, but by the end I had a hard time putting it down. A great book!

A good fast read. Interesting character studies.

I really enjoyed this book. I wasn't sure where it was going at first, but once I got into it - I couldn't stop reading it...

Great book - easy read. Good book club discussion

I really liked reading this book. It's a great suburbia satire...

I thought "Little Children" was an above-average read about interesting characters with real, but humorous, wants and needs.

a fun read.

Be sure to read this and see the movie.

Suburban angst played out during one summer outside of Boston. Todd and Sarah, an unlike pair, become friends and then lovers after a chance meeting at a neighborhood playground. Other neighborhood characters play small roles in the overall story. Easy read, a little deeper than a Harlequin romance, but overall lacking substance.

This book was written really basic and without a lot of skill. Kind of boring. The different chapters were either preditable or really far fetched.

A community of families in surburbia with seemily humdrum lives but feelings and desires seem to always come out and make this community different with its characters.

A solid story. Well written.

Funny but sad, a story of restless stay-at-homes and how they cope.

Really good book, I will look for more by Tom Perrotta.

very good book

Loved this book.

Good book

Engaging characters! Very well written. Loved it!

Wow! This is one of the best books i've read this year. It's funny, moving and oddly compassionate.

Kind of like watching Jerry Springer but not really owning up to watching it.....lol

Good book - excellently written

I thought this book was excellent and had a hard time putting it down. A great story!

Read in one sitting. Suburbia is sure to see itself in the characters.

Very good book - engaging ... about the plight of the suburbanites.

Enjoyed the book. Didn't love the main character, but it was interesting to watch how she changes in the book.

Wonderful, suspenseful, has to be better than the movie!

This book started off fantastic in the way that it was written but it lost me. The ending was horrible in my opinion; with the biggest revelation of Sarah, the main character, not happening until the last three or so pages. The upcoming movie makes the story look much more interesting that it is in my opinion. ((I'll still totally see it though, huge Kate Winslet fan!))

The thirtyish parents' lives are a little boring, but the shocking part about the child molester makes it more interesting.

Ok reading, didn't turn out as I expected.

Great book-a real surprise!!!

incredible

Very good book!!!

In a novel that is definitely not for or about children, Perrotta reveals the dark and private sides of suburban yuppie parents raising small children. This novel is addictive and easy to devour. Everyone in here is tied together by the little children--we have a stay-at-home-dad, a power woman who wishes she could stay home with her children, a stay-at-home-mom, and a child molester who is being hunted down by a local vigilante dad. Recounting the plot isn't necessary (you'll get some extramarital affairs, online porn addictions, frustrations with careers, vigilante justice, male bonding, female gossip circles, and more), but suffice it to say that once you get involved with these characters, you'll want to see more. Perrotta does an excellent job with the resolution of the novel, too, in one final scene that brings everything to a head and sets the characters on their new, changed courses.

NY Times Bestseller

30ish parents of young children would love this book..follows the lives of friends and their children..fun read and a good set of charcters in the book..engrossing and compassionate

This is the first book I've read by this author and I loved it - couldn't put it down. It's not that it was a fast paced book or really exciting, but I got involved with the characters and wanted to see what happened. Didn't really like that end but thats how it goes sometimes!

Seemed to be like a "Desperate Housewives" type book. It follows the marriage struggles of several thirtyish aged parents.

Interesting study in today's world, especially regarding a very extreme social problem.

A little strange, but intriguing

From Publishers Weekly
The characters in this intelligent, absorbing tale of suburban angst are constrained and defined by their relationship to children. There's Sarah, an erstwhile bisexual feminist who finds herself an unhappy mother and wife to a branding consultant addicted to Internet porn. There's Todd, a handsome ex-jock and stay-at-home dad known to neighborhood housewives as the Prom King, who finds in house-husbandry and reveries about his teenage glory days a comforting alternative to his wife's demands that he pass the bar and get on with a law career. There's Mary Ann, an uptight supermom who schedules sex with her husband every Tuesday at nine and already has her well-drilled four-year-old on the inside track to Harvard. And there's Ronnie, a pedophile whose return from prison throws the school district into an uproar, and his mother, May, who still harbors hopes that her son will turn out well after all. In the midst of this universe of mild to fulminating family dysfunction, Sarah and Todd drift into an affair that recaptures the passion of adolescence, that fleeting liminal period of freedom and possibility between the dutiful rigidities of childhood and parenthood. Perrotta (Election; Joe College; etc.) views his characters with a funny, acute and sympathetic eye, using the well-observed antics of preschoolers as a telling backdrop to their parents' botched transitions into adulthood. Once again, he proves himself an expert at exploring the roiling psychological depths beneath the placid surface of suburbia.

I enjoyed this somewhat offbeat book.

An excellent novel for any mother who envisions that "everyone else" is doing it right but her. Very humorous and witty.

A fun, quick read.

The novel is, in short, about a bunch of thirty-something parents, none of whom are happy in their marriages, but who are all sticking it out for one reason or another. Two of the characters begin an affair, filling a void for each other that was sorely needed to be filled. There really are three or four separate stories or lives in here that all intertwine in some way, and it all comes together, literally and figuratively at the end.

And I was with them right until the ending. And then out of left field, the deux es machina to end all, the random revelations and self-realizations that just suck away any hope I had for an ending that made sense.

About a stay at home dad who is the "prom king" at the playground with all the stay at home moms. A little slow at the beginning but worth sticking with.

This is a story of two couples and how their lives intertwine during one summer. It is about a stay at home dad and a stay at home mom and how their affair effects their families. Overall a good read, but some awkward material.

<< Back to Book Details of " Little Children"