Helpful Score: 3
I really fought to get through this book. It felt disjointed and did not flow well for me. It made large leaps of time without any transition and left many situations unfulfilled. The ending was especially odd. I know that Joyce Carol Oates is supposed to be a great writer, but she left me confused and disappointed in this novel.
Helpful Score: 1
I ended up liking this book, at first I did not, but I picked it up a second time and really enjoyed it. The beginning is a little hard to get through, but once you get through the first 30 pages the story really picks up. It's an interesting testament to how people can change through out their lives, and live a double life. What bothered me about the book is that the main character Rebbecca/Hazel, is so un-emotional. The main character starts her life emotional but then I guess, gets it punished out of her, and she is transformed into to an un-emotional little girl then women from first her father then husband. The oppressive family life was hard to get through for me, it was so sad the way she grew up and was shaped in a way that changed her. I understood and sometimes admired the main character, but ended up not really liking her, I just wished she would FEEL something, and it seems like she never did. I guess overall the book is sad but ends good. I would recommend it. It is given 4 1/2 stars instead of 5 because of the slow beginning.
