Acidic. Incohesive. Compassionate. Sprawling. Magnanimous. These are words that come to mind reading Terms of Endearment, which completed Larry McMurtry's so-called Houston Trilogy in 1975, with Moving On and All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers preceding it and a hit movie following. I still feel that McMurtry's novels--at least the three I've read--are too long and suffer in repetition and a lack of focus, a charge that McMurtry is not alone in committing among my favorite authors. The las [...]

I had never seen the movie & before doing so I picked up this book by the writer of "Lonesome Dove." That work cannot be too easily compared to this estrogen-drenched Fem-Power! novel which paints its heroine Aurora Greenway as a sassy matriarch deeply afraid of becoming a grandmother and too aware of her love life to stop and help all of her sisters in plight: mainly, her daughter and her maid, who suffer at the hands of stupid husbands. Aurora has all the suitors eating right out of her ha [...]

“It was inconsiderate, she thought, how blandly people mentioned the future in the sick rooms. Phrases like next summer were always popping out; people made such assumptions about their own continuity.” Terms of Endearment is a movie I grew up on and adored. I admit that even though I know every bit of dialogue by now that comes up during the sad scenes, I still sob like a baby during a couple of emotionally crushing scenes.Terms of Endearment the novel earned my biggest disappointed rating [...]

I am sorry to say I have DNF'd this one. I resolve to give any book 100 pages to engage with me, and if it doesn't, I move on. Perhaps if I had not just pushed myself through Lolita, I might have pushed myself to finish this one because it was a group read, but alas I did not. I have read McMurtry books that were wonderful, but this one left me not only flat, but thoroughly aggravated. I did not care for Aurora, I felt rather inclined to strangle her just to shut her up. Then it occurred to me t [...]

3.5 stars. I enjoyed this book, although it was a surprisingly light type of enjoyment. It's very funny and, as is typical with a McMurtry book, I loved the characters very much. Vernon was a particular favorite but they were all really wonderful.I've only seen the movie once or twice so I'm curious to see what people have to say about the book vs movie. The book is mostly about Aurora, with occasional forays into Emma's and some of Aurora's suitors' POVs. Aurora is a vibrant and mercurial chara [...]

Witty, poignant, searing, heartbreaking. Loved it.

McMurtry reminds me a little of John Irving in that he will take a character, usually a secondary one and give this whole rambling back story that can be really boring but works for them. Terms of Endearment was marketed as a mother-daughter story but I think it was more about Aurora. She is CLASSIC! she comes across as confident and witty and whip-smart (which she is) but really the overconfidence is covering major insecurity. She needs men to make her feel powerful and sexy. She needs to be wa [...]

*** SPOILER ALERT ***I saw this movie when was I was about 15 years old and some idiot woman in ALL her wisdom thought it would be the PERFECT movie for bunch of middle school and teenagers to watch during a church lock-in. All it did was confuse the middle-schoolers and resort me to tears. NOT an appropriate movie at all.I finally got around to reading the book this week. I have read several of Larry McMurtry's novels and have always appreciated his dry wit, so I was hoping the book would be mu [...]

I honestly didn't like it, but it intrigued me enough to want to know how it ends, so I did finish it, and gave it 1 star for that.I didn't feel like any of the characters were remotely likeable. The women who were married were all in terrible marriages with abuse of some sort. The fact that they never left of their own accord makes me wonder about the author's attitudes towards marrriage and towards women. The men were largely useless - either lazy, abusive, aggressive, or undeveloped and ignor [...]

Aurora Greenway is one of the best characters ever written, in my eyes. She cracked me up. While she wasn't always a commendable friend, mother, lover or even person, she was human, flawed and still tried to do her best. The only reason this book doesn't get 5 stars is because I didn't see enough reaction from Aurora with what happend at the end (no spoilers!). I would have liked to see perhaps more remorse- I think I wanted to cry but instead the ending didn't make much of an impact on me.

I laughed, I cried. What a versatile writer!

In terms of the relationships between men and women, this book feels quite dated. In terms of the relationship between mother (Aurora Greenaway) and daughter (Emma Horton), I suspect that many readers will either identify with, or certainly acknowledge the truthfulness, of the portrayal. Aurora is one of McMurtry's finest characters - in a large stable of fine and memorable characters. She is a monster of selfishness in many ways: vain, idle, narcissistic, mercurial and self-indulgent. In the op [...]

Terms of Endearment is another novel, aside from the last 40 pages, that bears no resemblance to the movie adaptation. Where the movie defined the “chick flick” genre, the novel is decidedly less weepy. In the book, Aurora Greenway lives in a vortex of chaos, most of which she has taken on herself. Facing the south-slope of midlife with her first grandchild on the way, Aurora is a living contradiction in terms. She’s a widow who leads on her multiple suitors but has little desire to be cau [...]

I liked it more and more as it went on, but I hated Aurora for a huge chunk of the book. I probably would've liked it more if she hadn't been so much the focus of the story. McMurtry is a great writer and this book won't put me off from reading more of his novels.

Wasn't at all what I expected. I thought it was about the coming together and relationship between a mother and daughter when it's just about the similar screwed up lives of two old broads who happen to be mother & daughter. They're practically inconsequential to one another till the very end.

This is one of those rare times, when I love the movie more than the book.

I didn't remember that McMurty had written this novel, but wanted to read it because I loved Lonesome Dove. This is an altogether different book which focuses on Aurora, a force of nature, an impossibly self-centered widow who has multiple suitors wishing to marry her. These suitors are very different from one another but each trying to win over Aurora who wants them all but doesn't want any of them. It's also the story of Emma, her daughter, 22, married to an ineffectual scholar-husband, Flap. [...]

I have been a fan of McMurty since his novel Lonesome Dove was made into a TV mini-series. After watching that epic western, I immediately went to the library and read the book as well as several other McMurty novels. His novels are either set in the days of Old West or contemporary Texas. His characters are certainly memorable, as you may know if you’ve ever read any of his novels or seen movies based on his work. Terms of Endearment takes place in modern Houston, TX and though there are both [...]

I'm not sure I understood this novel. It would be easy to dismiss the characters because they are too selfish, or too amoral. By today's standards the violence and verbal abuse seem trivalized as when it's done, the characters easily forget and bear little to no grudges. I did want to find out what was happening but in the end, it seemed all they wanted to do was mostly drink, screw, and abuse each other because someone else isn't living up to some kind of expectations.I'm not sure how I would f [...]

I saw the movie when it first came out. It was a tear-jerker at the end. Same thing with the book--the last section is mostly in Emma's perspective and just as heartbreaking as I remember the movie was.The most surprising thing about the book was how little it actually followed the movie. Spoiler alert--there is no Garrett Breedlove character in the book. The paperback edition I read must have come out after the movie. It had a middle section of photos of Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger and Jeff [...]

This book is confusing to me. I kept waiting for the plot to happen.The description points out that the author has created two women whom MOVIEGOERS everywhere fell in love with. Perhaps not readers. Aurora Greenway is the main character here, a mature woman with several gentleman 'callers' who are all convinced they are in love with her. She deftly plays them off of each other, creating endless entertainment for herself, but perhaps leaving others hurting. Emma is her daughter. Emma is not a st [...]

There's another user on who rated this two stars because the "only good things about it was the superb writing and memorable characters." I agree with her and would also add great dialogue and give it two more stars making it four. As memorable characters go Aurora Greenway is a diamond, almost vicious in her pragmatism, sharp-tongued and hilariously uncomfortable to be around. In lesser hands she may have been a cartoon but Larry McMurty is a great writer and gives depth graciously ("I know I [...]

This book is almost an exact replica of my relationship with my own Mother and myself. It was stunning to me to read it when I did way back when because I kept stopping and thinking, "do we know Larry McMurtry", or "does my Mother know him."The answer was no to both questions, but this book is on of the two (2) or three (3) books I reread every so often and still enjoy as if it were the first time.I'm not great at explaining plots of books, I think because I much prefer to personalize what I fel [...]

I did not like it that much. The only good things about it was the superb writing and the memorable characters. However, I did not really like the plot. I got a feeling that this was supposed to be a mother-daughter book but it really wasn't. It was actually a mother and her suitors, and daughter and her love affairs. If this was published today they might be called sluts and bitches. The ending was actually pretty good but I think the author wasted a lot of pages for that. The beginning was too [...]

If you have seen the movie, you know how special it was and you don't really need the story recapped. Just let me say that even though the movie was beautifully done, the book is still better and this is one you should grab and read, however keep a box of tissues close by. This author has so many amazing novels and readers should be glad for his accomplishments and amazing stories.

All I can say is that it must have taken a screenwriter of heroic proportions to see an Oscar-winning movie from this novel. If I had never seen the movie, I wouldn't have made it as far as I did (I got one-third through the book before I gave up). I did skip to the end to find out that Emma's last days in the movie were portrayed fairly true to the book.

I thought this book was manipulative aiming at wringing every possible tear out of the reader.

Aurora Greenway and her daughter are the subjects of this tale, but Emma (the daughter)is mostly invisible; standing in the huge and flamboyant shadow cast by her Mother. Being raised by a 'Princess' myself, I was initially put off. But really - Aurora's hilarious repartee, her ongoing criticisms of her many suitors -- had me in stitches. In her own quieter way, Emma holds her own and in ways is as intrigued by her Mother's outrageous entitlement as all the other people Aurora shuffles in and ou [...]

I read this after seeing the movie. I think I liked it well enough, but wasn't blown away by it. Whatever McMurtry may have intended, Shirley MacLaine will always be Aurora to me. What a performance!As for McMurtry's other novels, Lonesome Dove is really the only "blow you away it's so good" story.

You'd think I would know better than to read a book that was the source material for a movie I'm not crazy about. I thought the movie was fine, although it didn't make me cry (and I hate Jack Nicholson). But I adored Lonesome Dove which I read in the winter, and since this is considered a modern classic (and Larry McMurtry is my best friend's favorite author), it seemed like a no-brainer to give it a shot. It started off badly as I began it on the very end of the longest flight in the world (Syd [...]