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Book Review of I Know This Much Is True

I Know This Much Is True
wantonvolunteer avatar reviewed on + 84 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


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.