Great book! It had been a long time since I found something to read that wasn't a complete disappointment. Being a stay at home mom myself if I find the time to read a book it better be worth it...this was really worth it. My husband picked this book up for me to read but when he wanted something to read and couldn't find anything at the moment he picked this up and devoured it in one day. He couldn't put it down. He really like it and knew I would too.
He was right, when I finally got a chance to read it (several weeks later) it was time well spent.
There are times when you can see yourself in some of the charters or others you know in some of the charters. Interesting be be on the outside looking in at life and/or what life maybe like for those we know.
I'm off to find other books by this author...

I bought this book used for $1. I'm glad I paid this much for it because while it was very mildly entertaining it had the tiresome plot of rich/middle class white mostly heterosexual people in suburbia having affairs and the plot does go on like a soap opera or like a full season of Desperate Housewives but the book's themes have been covered A LOT before, way too much in my opinion. While this book is supposed to be satire Perrotta isn't that good at writing satire about the suburbs or about rich/middle class heterosexuals.

I like Perrotta's other novels but this one is a big waste of time and totally predictable.

I also agree with the people who wrote about how Perrotta's characters are way too flat and we don't know enough about them and towards the end we learn more about minor characters in the novel who we should have learned more about in the beginning of the novel.

*****SPOILER ALERT***** DO NOT READ PAST THIS POINT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR THE ENDING!





Also the book just ends, out of nowhere. I didn't care about any of the characters or feel sorry, or happy for any of them and two of the main characters who were having an affair were planning to run off and get married or at least stay together as paramours and Todd doesn't show up because he falls while trying to ride a skateboard. How lame of an ending? Also both main characters know where they both live so it's not like they're complete strangers or they'd never see each other again ever.

Also Sarah's husband who goes to San Diego to meet with Slutty Kay/Carla they go out to dinner the day after having sex on the beach and you never hear if they wind up together or if Richard joins the adult entertainment industry.

The pedophile character was totally predictable and so was the ex cop. It would have been better if they hadn't been flat cookie cutter characters that we've all seen before.

The only reason this book is garnering more than a one-star review from me is for its readability. I actually got into the story (in spite of the disgusting pornographic references--a man breathing into a woman's used panties? Gross!), but felt let down at the end, feeling the events were leading up to a grand finale, but the conclusion was very anticlimactic.

Basically, Todd (the hunky, but pansy stay-at-home dad--not saying stay-at-home dads are prissy, look at Todd Palin, but this one was) staying with his wife just because she's good in the sack, well, need I say more? And how sexist is it that his wife, Kathy, who knows about his affair with Sarah (which only begins because of one kiss--seems like anything will get this guy going), basically prostitutes herself to hold on to her cowboy (or more like would-be-lawyer turned cop). Idiotic.

I felt my intelligence was insulted by reading this, and it's obvious it was written by one of those far-left loons in Massachusetts (I know I'll get negative points for this assessment), but it was obvious what with the whole unnecessary lesbian fling thrown in, the child molester being painted as just an average joe six-pack, the cop accidentally shooting the kid (who just happens to be black--gee, it was an accident, a tragic one, cops are human, too, doggonit, but he really did think the kid had a gun on him and if so many black people didn't commit violent crimes (more unhelpful votes here), maybe he wouldn't have been so anxious) and whose against the child molester being in his neighborhood, the existence of God being mocked, the Christian Mary Ann being painted as a real *itch, Sarah standing up for the sick freak who abuses children in a way that murders their innocence, the use of the term "c*ck", ugh!

It wasn't very believable how all of a sudden, Sarah realized that running away with Todd wasn't the answer to her happiness. It didn't seem like she even enjoyed being a mother and there was Richard, her husband, whining about how his grown daughters from his first marriage took his money, but didn't want anything to do with him, well, can you blame them? He wanted to have them aborted and it's his responsibility to care for them until they turn eighteen. Should have kept it in your pants, pal.

This book was really just too much. I don't think you'll get anything out of it. I am really in the wrong business when rubbish like this not only sells, but gets so many good reviews, and is given a movie deal.

Reading "Little Children", I couldn't help but think of John D. MacDonald, who would've written this kind of story in a couple of weeks--and done a much better job.

I wish I could've enjoyed this novel more, but the characters (or caricatures) just aren't very interesting, and there is no real protagonist.

Instead, we get a routine tale of love and adultery in the suburbs, with a paroled child molester thrown into the mix. Too bad he wasn't a mad bomber; he might've blown up the whole group on page 9 and saved the readers a lot of wasted time.

Tom Perrotta is a master of realism. A few of the blurbs on the inside cover refer to Little Children as "satirical," but I haven't ever read anything that better describes the normal lives of normal people while keeping entertainment a part of the process (See Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius for realism that seems to be almost wielded against the reader).

Perrotta has been cranking out successful, easy to read novels for 10 years. He broke onto the nationwide best seller list with Election which was later turned into an Oscar nominated movie. After the moderately successful Joe College, Little Children has received even more sales and accolades than Election.

Little Children begins with Sarah, mother of two year-old Lucy, struggling to fit into the role of stay at home mom. This transformation from college intellectual to unexpected mother is only made more difficult by the marriage that she's trapped in with Richard. Richard's biggest problem with the marriage is that he's in love with a porn star he has never met named "Slutty Kay."

While watching her daughter play at the park, Sarah meets Todd, a handsome, married, law school graduate that has failed the bar exam twice. He's a hundred thousand dollars worth of indecision. He tells his wife almost every night that he is going to the library to study for the bar. Instead, he goes to a skate park and watches teenagers skateboard. An amalgamation of dissatisfaction and idleness draws the two into a passionate affair while the rest of the town obsesses about a newly released child sex offender who many suspect to have gotten away with murdering a little girl.

The novel revolves around Sarah and Todd trying to understand what their new romance means. Is it just a fling? Should they leave their significant other? Should their children's likely future unhappiness factor into a decision that could possibly make their own lives less miserable?

There wasn't a single likeable character in Little Children. The reason for this is that Perrotta did his job extremely effectively. I personally think that barely anybody would like anyone if we knew all of the selfish, devious things that constantly run through each others minds, especially the minds of middle-aged, middle class people who are under whelmed with how their life turned out. Instead, compassion is conjured in all of the places Perrotta designed it to and likewise derision where he intended it to appear. This novel expertly shows why the inability to know every thought in someone's head is what allows us to manage having relationships.

I feel a similar dislike for characters in Chuck Pahlaniuk books, but he doesn't ever manage to stir up any compassion for his characters. Obviously, Little Children is at a different level than Pahlaniuk's books because Chuck ratchets up the disgusting character flaws quite a bit, but I think that's the point. Perrotta mixes selfishness with the longing for human understanding in his characters in realistic harmony.

When I was little, I remember seeing families breaking apart. When I heard about affairs that people were having I would think, "Why are these people doing this? Can't they see how much pain they're causing?" If you've ever wondered something similar and came away without a full-fleshed answer, read this book.