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Customer Reviews of Ordinary People

An extraordinary book
This book is a great coming-of-age story. The unique twist that Guest puts in the story, however, is that the character who is coming of age has already hit his turning point before the story begins. Many coming-of-age books focus on the character's turning point within the story.Judtih Guest makes the characters in the story so real, they all seem like people we all know. There is the mother who is cold and emotionless because of the death of her son. The angered teenager. The mid-life father, who seems to be having trouble with his marriage. The title of the book creates an ironic story. The characters are not ordinary, but they are very real. The title is a reflection of each character's longing to be ordinary. Everyone in the book wants to be portrayed as normal, yet no one in the story is. The story is heart-touching, and the struggle that Calvin goes through to help his marriage and that Conrad goes through to cope with the death of his brother are depicted in a very true fashion. Judith Guest does a great job at capturing the pain and anguish that comes with understanding and forgiveness. Conrad needs to forgive himself. Beth, Conrad's mother, needs to forgive Conrad. The two characters have a ruined relationship as a result of Conrad's suicide attempt. Each character realizes that the other cannot forgive him/her. Calvin goes through a ridiculous amount of pain while trying to understand Beth. Guest makes it clear that the characters are not the 'normal' happy couple they once were. I suggest this book to anyone who enjoys reading books in which the main character must overcome a great obstacle to mature.

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Aly's Bookworm
"Ordinary people" by Judith Guest we can encounter a great deal of vulnerability and artificiality in The Gerads , an upper -middle class American family. It tells the story of the devastating effects loss can have on what to all appearances is a "model" family. The family consists of Beth, the mother who is perfectly callous, cold and unfeeling, Cal,the father who is constantly manipulated by his wife, but is in a constant fight to keep his family together, Conrad, the emotionally unstable teenage son, and Buck, the "perfect" son who died in a boating accident. The story is set in Illinois, which adds to the trauma of the story line.

The atmosphere the family lives in before the tragic death of the perfect son, Buck is "great". Buck made the entire family proud. After his death in the boating accident the facade the family lived in started falling apart. Conrad felt he was responsible for the death of Buck and blamed himself. He even tried committing suicide and this just made his "perfect" mom mad. This family has trouble communicating and they just avoid talking about their problems. Whenever Cal and Conrad try speaking up Beth interrupts with her attitude and brings up supposedly "happier" memories. Berger, a psychiatrist that Conrad was seeing made him realize the truth about what really was going on in his family. He was of great help to Conrad and Cal, but Beth didn't want to see him because she thought family problems should be fixed within the family. Overall, I think this book is really good in making you realize that your own problems are so normal and many people go through the same thing. Even though they had more severe problems like depression, it helped me see my issues aren't that bad when compared to others. I recommend you watch the movie because it's easier to understand the meaning of their situation.

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Ordinary People by Judith Guest
When I started reading this book, I thought it was boring. I didn't ever want to read it, even though I knew it had to be read. Once I got to the middle of the book, I thought it became more interesting. By the time I was three quarters of the way through the book, I really liked it and I never wanted to put it down. The only thing I did not like in the end was that the book just stopped. There was no tie-up of the loose ends.