pasc96 's review for:

Little Children by Tom Perrotta

4.0

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Tom Perrotta's perfectly paced deconstruction of modern suburban life features characters who suck the reader into their strange, sad little worlds from page one and don't let up even long after the book has been finished. Every character, whether it be a bored housewife or a convicted sex offender, is empathetic and maddening, relatable and off-putting, and the intersection of their lives is at times heartbreaking, amusing, tragic, and logical. This is the first book I've read that can be considered a bildungsroman for adults: The title aptly describes the state of our major players at the beginning of the novel, but by the end readers are convinced these people have grown up. And once again, Perrotta blew me away with his final scene. No one writes a last line better than he does.