Reviews for Little Children

The average rating for Little Children based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-02-01 00:00:00 Andrew Crilley The movie adaptation of this book was on TV recently which reminded me that I had read this book quite some time ago. Little Children focuses on couples in their thirties living in a quiet Boston suburb where nothing really happens. One summer all of that changes when a convicted pedophile moves into the neighborhood. Sarah and Richard: Sarah was once a radical feminist. She never thought she would be where she is or who she is today - a common housewife. Her husband, Richard secludes himself in his study ignoring his wife and child as he becomes more and more involved with internet porn. Kathy and Todd: Kathy is a successful documentary filmmaker. Her husband Todd stays at home taking care of their toddler son. Kathy feels like she is missing out and is envious of the connection Todd has with their son. She continuously pressures Todd to take the bar exam (he doesn't tell her he doesn't want to be a lawyer). He tells his wife he is out studying for the exam but instead tries to relive his youth watching a bunch of kids skateboarding. Mary Ann and Louis: Mary Ann thinks the key to life is to have everything scheduled down to the minute. This includes scheduling sex with her husband, Louis every Tuesday evening at nine p.m. When Ronald McGorvey, convicted sex offender moves into the neighborhood the residents are angry. Especially retired cop Larry. Three years ago something happened while on duty that ended up forcing him into early retirement. His wife and kids have left him. He decides to take it upon himself to rid the neighborhood of Ronald or "Ronnie". To get out of the house Sarah starts hanging around the playground with her daughter, Lucy. Todd has also been bringing his son to the same playground. All of the other mothers think Todd is gorgeous and refer to him as "Prom King." One day the mothers dare Sarah to walk up to Todd and ask for his phone number. Things go even farther and soon the two of them are scheduling play dates for both their children and themselves. I read this book over ten years ago. I clearly remember reading the synopsis of the book and laughing because there were a few similarities to my life. At the time I was still married and both my husband and I were in our thirties. My husband's name was also Todd, and he was staying at home to take care of our daughter. I wasn't a famous filmmaker but I was working full time and I remember feeling like I was missing out on raising my child. And bizarrely sometimes when I picked up my daughter from school, some women would ask where my husband, "Hot Toddy" was. Anyhow back to the book. I really enjoyed seeing how the lives of the characters intertwined throughout the novel. I thought they were quite well-developed. Some of the characters were just perfect in their unlike-ability. The bitchy playground mothers were so well-written as were many of the other characters. The writer shows how flawed any of us can be. How we can all make a bad choice, or give into temptation. We don't all behave perfectly all the time. I'm not saying that everyone is going to give into their temptation but we'd be surprised probably to find out what really happens in some of our neighbors lives. A lot of references to Madame Bovary in the book. At the beginning the women are reading it for their book-club. Mary Ann: Oh that's nice. So now cheating on your husband makes you a feminist? Sarah Pierce: No, no, no. It's not the cheating. It's the hunger - the hunger for an alternative and the refusal to accept a life of unhappiness. I really enjoyed the dark humor and thought it was a good, quick and interesting read. Lots of food for thought with this one. Perfect for book clubs.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-10-14 00:00:00 Patrick Lee This was like if Richard Yates or Raymond Carver had written a suburban psychological drama bordering on chick-lit: but with added intelligence, covered with a dusting of dark satire. Little Children is primarily about lackluster marriages, adultery, and child-raising in typical American upper and middle class suburbia. Oh, and there is a sex offender in here too. We have Sarah, absent-minded mother of Lucy, who is member of a reading group, and the mommy tribe that meet at the local playground - though she kind of despises them. Herself and husband Richard haven't been intimate for months, as he'd rather be sat in his office sniffing a pair of dirty panties that he ordered through the post from Slutty Kay - his online infatuation. There is Todd: nicknamed the Prom King by local women, husband of Kathy, who looks after their 3-year-old son during the day whilst Kathy works. And it's at the park that he first meets Sarah, who is just waiting for a decent, kind, good looking man to put some excitement back into her life, because she isn't going to get it from Richard! Sarah begins to imagine a life with Todd, a former campus hunk and high school football hero who has always had his pick of the women. To his surprise though: despite Kathy being a stunner, Todd finds himself equally drawn to the plain looking Sarah. She diverts his attention from his desultory efforts to study for the bar exam he has already failed twice. An affair was always on the table. Or the washing machine as it turned out. And with added pressure from his wife, who is a documentary filmmaker, she thinks it's about time he was the one bringing home the biggest pay packet - so she can finally play mommy. The view here of families in the eyes of Perrotta's men and women, are those of contemptible alliances, of boredom, and of disappointment. Every spouse feels the need to escape - though it usually ends up as some sort of new domestic arrangement that proves futile in their anguished hopes of starting afresh. So now we come to Ronald James McGorvey, who returns to the neighbourhood after a three-year stint in prison for having exposed himself to a girl. Now, you might think Perrotta treats this guy with total contempt - but he doesn't. From the neighbours and mothers in the book yes, but not from the writer. All main characters receive Perrotta's wry affection, and McGorvey gets it too. There are some really tender moments in the book, including moments between Ronnie and his elderly mother, who he moves back in with after prison. She loves her son, and sees him as someone who is suffering an illness, rather than believing he is an evil monster, and tries to help him as best she can. And as much as I tried to fight it, it was difficult not to have sympathy for him, and her, in the end. What I liked a lot about this novel is that Perrotta humanizes without sentimentalizing, and pulls off being quite cold-blooded at times, but yet he is so full of warm feelings for his main characters. Through the linked events that occur, Perrotta delivers a really satisfying ending to his narrative, which is crowned by a deeply touching and ironic scene, which takes place at the same playground where Sarah first felt attracted to the dashing Prom King. The dialogue here is really astute, and so genuine depending on the situation each character finds themselves in, and with some really good interior monologues, these characters feel so real they could quite easily just be living down the road. Everything seemed to move along at a jolly old pace too, which was a surprise to me, so I felt compelled to just get on and finish the thing in as little amount of time as possible. Another reason not to drag it out is that I knew what was coming anyway, having seen the 2006 movie a few times. I'd put movie: which really impressed me, at least on a par with the novel.