I read Wally Lamb’s She’s Come Undone about a dozen years ago, and decided to pick up my weathered little copy for a re-read this month. If you’ve never read it, please do. I mean, hey, even Oprah likes it. (It was an Oprah’s Book Club Selection in 1997).

It’s a very powerful, funny and touching story about Dolores Price, who overcame her emotional eating, obesity, abuse, difficult family issues and a bunch of bad relationships before finally coming into her own. Thiis read had me choking back tears again…well, after wiping the ones that ran down onto my neck.

And this time around, I found one subtle part in particular very inspiring, when Dolores was talking to her mother about her reluctance to attend college. As “Dolores” writes:

I’m going to college in three weeks,” I said. “Maybe.”

“Why maybe?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll probably hate it.”

“Oh, go anyway. I usually learn more from the situations I hate than the ones I love, you know?”

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