Customer Reviews: Read 129 more reviews...
 Well Written, but not a Classic January 17, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
ORDINARY PEOPLE is a novel about the Jarretts, a wealthy suburban family that has to deal with the suicide attempt of their son. This novel is well written, but I found it a bit slow going in parts. Ms. Guest changes the point of view a lot in this book, and writes in a stylistic stream-of-consciousness style that makes it hard to strongly relate to any of the main characters.
I also found the title of this book rather odd, since the story deals with a privileged, highly neurotic family that is hardly representative of the population at large. Most people don't have the option to jet off to Europe in response to a family crisis, for example. I understand that rich people aren't necessarily happy, but that doesn't mean that I have to feel sorry for them.
Many of the issues in ORDINARY PEOPLE were probably cutting edge in 1978, but we now live in a more modern age of self-evaluation, so I'm guessing that most Americans are now very familiar with the themes presented in this book. Still, Guest is a fine writer, and there are many moments in this book that are emotionally honest and touching.
I would therefore recommend this novel for people who are interested in a good family drama. This novel is a good one, but I wouldn't compare it to such masterpieces such as CATCHER IN THE RYE or A SEPARATE PEACE.
 Great read - stayed with me for a long time December 17, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This was one of my favourite books as a teen (ie about 15 years ago)! It's about grief and death and a family falling apart. I kept my battered copy for years when I lived in the UK and brought it home to Jamaica with me. I really identified with it at the time and felt that it crossed gender, racial, and cultural barriers in dealing with the topics. I am not white, upper middle class American and yet I felt it could be my family or anyone's that this happened to. I can't believe some readers thought this was shallow. And believe it or not, not every psychiatrist medicates you and sends you home. Read it!
Typical Literary Pap/ Kitsch June 11, 2006
6 out of 20 found this review helpful
Ease of reading: It was fairly light read and can be finished in a afternoon or two. There are a few too many characters to keep straight easily, and the author's habit of starting a scene right in the middle of someone's stream of consciousness doesn't make the prose any easier to follow.
Resemblance to reality: This is very low. The visits to the psychiatrist are what put this more firmly in the category of fiction than any other thing. I happen to know for a fact that psychiatrists don't sit and listen to patients' existential meanderings for several visits. That is the job of COUNSELORS. Psychiatrists want you in, medicated, and out the door as soon as possible. Most visits last 15 minutes, tops.
Ability to create interest: Not all that high. So this is a family of people who have problems. Who doesn't? One really wonders when reading this book: If these characters had a little less disposable income, would these problems be as "serious" as they were? Or would these people have been about the business of living every day life and therefore putting emotional crises on the back burner?
Save your money.
 Don't you have anything better to read?! April 18, 2006
6 out of 11 found this review helpful
Although this book is supposedly a classic of modern fiction, I personally do not really like it. I find it to be overdone and melodramatic. The writing oozes with poetic descriptions of everything, from a beer to the colors on walls. While conveying the thought processes of neurosis, this made it a tedious and ambiguous read. The author repeatedly flies into the pure abstraction of subjective emotions, and the characters wax philosophical about the fleeting impermanance of modern life. Nor did I find the subject matter of the breakup of the family very interesting because it has been expounded upon (and proselytized) ad infinitum by social critics and so the points the book made weren't exactly revolutionary. The key psychological analyses that it made have been better covered in Catcher in the Rye. However, it is still arguably an important book to read simply because of its cultural relevance and the somewhat distinctive style in which it was written, which seems to have endeared it to many readers.
 See, kids? Even emo existed in the '70s. March 3, 2006
5 out of 23 found this review helpful
Ordinary People is an atrocious book. The subject matter is morbid, the flashbacks of the boating accident are incomprehensible, the dialogue will put you to sleep, and there's even a pre-marital sex scene between our emo protagonist, Conrad, and that skank, Jeaninne. Conrad's parents have to be the worst in the world. The mother is a recluse who bottles up her feelings around her son and his supportive father is a borderline alcoholic. I was forced to read this book in high school and it just made me feel depressed and disgusted. Please, stay as far away from this book as possible.
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