Rating: 
Summary: Tiring
Review: I found this book very tiring. The endless, boring, minute detail made the book twice as long as it needed to be. Although there was an interesting storyline there, it kept getting lost in the shuffle. I was just plain tired by the time I finally finished it.
Rating:
Summary: A Frustrating and Unlikely Story
Review: I started out really liking this book and all it's quirky characters. I enjoyed Ms. Oates style filled with 'wordy' descriptions. But then she vears off in this totally unbelievable direction and she lost me. I just can not believe this fun, happy, highly affectionate family would react to the daughters rape in the way described. It was truely infuriating and I came to hate these parents, esp the Mother. It may have made some sense if it had taken place in the 20's or 30's but in the 70's women were no longer to be blamed! I really can't understand the choices Ms. Oates made and though I saw it through to the end it held no truth or satsifaction. It is too bad, I really wantd to like this book, the only realistic character in the book was the cat, Muffin.
Rating: 
Summary: I have mixed feelings....
Review: I have mixed feeling about this book.I loved it and I hated it! The story is about a close family falling apart because of a terrible thing that happened to their only daughter.It was a pretty slow book , and really detailed, but this was not all a bad thing. I thought the fact that it was so detailed helped you to get to know the charaters. I had a love/hate relationship with the characters of this book. I felt for some of the characters, while other i was just wanted to yell "your so Stupid!!!". I recommend this book is you enjoy books that and detailed, but if you need a fast action plot this is not the book for you. but in my opinion everyone should give this book a chance i think its a very worth while read.
Rating:
Summary: What an emotional ride...
Review: I thought this book was unbelievable in the fact that the characters were so real! I loved and hated the charaters at the same time. I think that without question Joyce Carol Oates knows how to write a incredible book. Why is it incredible? I think any book is great when you honestly feel you know the character and you either want to be their friend or kill them! This story is about a very close family who are tradgically tore apart by an incedent , that was obviously to much for them to take. I highly recommend this book is you love stories of families that go through love, pain, heartach and survival. I will only say that this book will make you smile and then be so mad you can't stand it!!! Read this it's a great book!
Rating:
Summary: Family Story
Review: I also got frustrated with the actions of the characters in this book but ultimately decided that the author's ability to chronicle the life of a family (warts and all) were what made it ring so true for me. I feel that some of the reviewers wanted Oates to write a novel about righting the wrongs done to this girl and have a bunch of heroes celebrating the renewal of their family at the end of the story. But is real life always like that? People are flawed, families make mistakes and have to live with them. I feel that the author was giving us a picture of a particular family caught up in a certain situation and the way they handled it. The only problem that I had with the story was that I felt that the parents motivations for doing what they did were not really clear to me. Without revealing the story, I felt that the author made some big leaps in the story without explaining the characters motivation fully. But again, I guess that kind of mimics real life too. I don't always understand my own motivations much less anyone else's! Anyway, I did like the book a lot. I have only read Oates' short stories before but hope to read another novel in the future.
Rating: 
Summary: completely unbelievable
Review: Whoever the Mom and Dad characters are at the end of this book are not the same ones the author was writting about in the beginning. The author is truly expecting too much of her readers if she expects us to believe almost anyones parents would behave in such a disgusting manner. Least of all not the paragons of parenthood, the Mulvaneys, that she describes in such loving detail in the beginning. While the incident of rape is indeed tragic it would not rip a family with a foundation like the Mulvaneys apart. This book was depressing. I kept hoping it would get better. The end just made you want to get counceling for the daughter who for 12 years blamed herself for her rape. The Mom and Dad became pathetic losers with no sence of decency toward their daughter. Save yourself. This book truly was a work
of FICTION.
Rating: 
Summary: Two words. "TRAIN WRECK"
Review: I read this book and I couldn't have stopped reading it even if I wanted to. I had to find out what happended to this poor family even though it was painful to do so.
While I found the premise of the book interesting, the characters in the book were extremely hard to believe and/or like. While I'm aware that a large number of rapes go unreported, I found it almost impossible to believe that the family would do absolutely nothing for their daughter. All the parents seemed to care about were themselves, as proven when they pack up Marianne and send her to live with an aunt. I kept wanting SOMEONE to slap Mr. Mulvaney out of his constant pity party, and speaking of Mr. Mulvaney, WHO exactly was this book about? First Judd's talking, supposedly telling the story, then sometimes he's not because we're given detail after detail of things that he couldn't possibly know about. Then, there's a great deal written about Patrick and his "rebirth" out of the muck of the swamp, and you can forget trying to figure out Mrs. Mulvaney-she lives in her own world where everything's perfect. Mike, the older brother is someone who did nothing for the family or the plotline and poor Marianne, the victim in all this mess, is too saintly to be believed. I think the book would have been much stronger if the author had completely focused on Marianne and the rape rather than trying to bog us down with EVERY character's thought and emotions. I just think the book had way too much detail in some areas and needed serious revision in others. The books spends so much time talking about the terrible tragedies that befall this family and then ends with everyone beaming and smiling at one another as if nothing ever happened! The ending of the book is so "perfect" that I can't help but feel that Ms. Oates got tired of writing and just put a band aid on a family with some serious wounds!
Rating:
Summary: Way, way too many DASHES in Oat's adjectives!
Review: I got SO sick of seeing those damn dashes! I feel that the
excessive use of lumping together 2 adjectives with DASHES
to try to convey extra description was lazy and self-serving.
Sure, they contributed (how could they not?) to the feeling
of really being there, but it's a cheap shot. A better writer
would restrain herself. Anyone can throw in a ton of dashes! As for the novel, I couldn't like it yet couldn't quite
dislike it either. The plot was good, the characters were overwritten yet fairly believable. But I agree that the
details and minutia were irritatingly unnecessary. Just tell
me the story and let the character's voices speak for themselves. Another thing I really disliked was using a first-person
narrative to tell the story from ALL the main character's
points of view as if Judd could really get inside the heads
of his mom, dad, sister and brothers. Again, a copout to make
the novel more believable. I couldn't buy it. The setting, however, intrigued me. Not the NY City area, not
Boston, not New England...but upstate NY/PA. Oates' descriptions
of the weather alone made me interested in visiting that
part of the state. Were the family members actions believable? Hard to say, not
coming from a happy family of origin myself. But the full-circle happy ending was well deserved for the poor Mulvaneys,
especially Patrick's, the novel's most sympathetic character.
I only believed the Marianne character because I know a girl
a lot like her. Judd and Mike I could take or leave. Michael
pushed Marianne away because he couldn't face the fact that he
was unable to undo the hurt his little girl suffered. Poor
Corinne was torn between her love for her man and her daughter,
and made her decision as best she could. It was interesting
to me that the woman survives the tragedy and the man of the
house is too weak to do so. Also, you have to remember that the '70's were different, phrases like date-rape were just coming out, people were both
more innocent and more ignorant; it was still the dawn of the
woman's movement. Communes and Jimmy Carter were still around,
people hadn't yet understood the term dysfunctional, co-dependant, etc. While it was hard to deal with Michael's
actions, he does destroy his own world and himself in the end. Does Marianne ever really recover? We're not really sure. We'd
like to hope she found happiness with that vet and her new
family.
Rating:
Summary: an intricate read
Review: Joyce Carol Oats does such a wonderful job taking us through the complex lives of the people in this family. The story moved me to tears at times and inspired me at times. This was the first novel by this author that i read. Since reading this one, I've gone on to read several more of her books, and enjoyed every one of them. I would recommend this book to all my friends.
Rating:
Summary: keep reading
Review: This book started out slowly and if it hadn't been a book club selection, I might have stopped reading. But I'm glad I finished it. Thinking back on the first chapters, I felt, after reading it all, that the family was nothing like we thought at first. I enjoyed the descriptions of the places, animals, etc. because I am originally from that area. Oates is a little wordy, however.
I think it was about Patrick, who he was and how he discovered that...............And I loved Oates thought that what is unspoken in a family is the most important.
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