I keep saying that I haven't read much by Joyce Carol Oates, and maybe it's because she's written so much! This is my third book by JCO and I enjoyed her story-telling ability. It's typically dark (as the other TWO I've read were), but she tells a crisp clean story and ends the tale without leaving any unanswered questions. Not the best book I've ever read, but one that makes me want to sit down and try my hand at writing - again. She makes it look so easy!

If you're looking for a good book to take to the beach this summer, this one will do nicely.

You can probably tell whether this book is for you when I describe it as Lolita, from Lolita's point of view. If you enjoy stories that make you edge uncomfortably sideways as you read through subtext, rather than direct content, you'll love it. Joyce Carol Oates writes compelling stories with a dark undertone, bringing unique characters to life, and Fair Maiden is no exception to that trend. However, the story took a left turn at the end and didn't live up to the promise of the first half. So three stars for what would have otherwise been a solid four, due to the limp ending.

This was a bummer because of JOC's short stories start out as if everything is fine, and then slowly unfold into horrific, creepy tales. This novella started out slowly and didn't really pick up until the last third of the story, and even then, it wasn't gripping but just kind of sad. I wouldn't recommend it.

What is with Joyce Carol Oates's female characters. I'm far from an Oates scholar, but it seems as if a lot of her ladies are allergic to making wise life decisions. But I guess maybe that's the point.... And certainly the men in these women's lives are far from stellar.

This had some Lolita vibes (though the girl was older, thank God!).

The two principal lovers in Katya's life serve as foils illustrating the difference between love at the carnal, sexual level and love at the spiritual, quasi-Platonic level.

This book ends with the most romantic assisted suicide scene I've ever read. It has almost a storybook quality by the end. I cannot say that I loved the characters enough to feel Kidder's departure from Katya in my heart, but it was certainly a melancholic ending note.

Glad it was a short read. This plot wouldn't have survived a Stephen-King dose of filler!

It's rare that I quit reading (in my case, listening to) a book before I've finished, but today I came to the conclusion that I hate this book (about 3/5 of the way through). It has no redeeming qualities. It's like watching a horror movie where the protagonist is walking into some stupidly horrible situation, and you want to scream, "NO!!! Don't do it!". It's not even fair to compare it to "Lolita" - it's nowhere near as well-written. Also, the audiobook version annoyed the heck out of me because the reader - even though she's from New York - gave the characters, who are from New Jersey, a mid-western accent. Who does that?

Joyce Carol Oates is a master. Trigger warning, the real definition of a horror story.

Very well written, but also very upsetting. It's a quick read but definitely not a light and fluffy one!

I'm still processing what in the world this was...it can't really be categorized as a bad book because the writing is fine, but the story has left me thinking "WTF" for two days now.

TW: Adult-minor relationship, mentions of (potential) incest, sexual violence,

Spoiler

chronic illness, assisted suicide

Joyce Carol Oates is quickly become one of my favorite authors. There is something about her that just speaks to my id—particularly in that she doesn't seem to try and reign hers in, and I completely fuck with that.

This is the story of Katya Spivak, a 16-year-old Jersey girl who is working as a nanny one summer in an upscale seaside town. There, she meets a much older man whose inappropriate interest in her is something Katya is quite familiar with—having been subjected to such advances nearly all her life. But the intensity of their relationship quickly ramps up, and Katya slowly realizes that Marcus Kidder has designs for her beyond being a pretty young model he wants to draw.

The premise of this is immediately intriguing to me, because I love examinations of intensely skewed power dynamics—and JCO makes it seem like this could go either way. Kidder, of course, is predatory simply by nature of him being an older man seeking out a relationship with this much younger woman. This is something that we, as readers, understand. But Katya as well revels in the power of her youthfulness and sexiness—especially in older men—which is a certain kind of power too when you are a teenage girl, which JCO so carefully unfolds as something that can be extremely exploitable (and then not so carefully). This appeal is what makes her feel safe in Kidder's home, his presence, as his model—even when all signs point to the predatory nature of their relationship.

I've mentioned before how much I enjoy how JCO writes women. Never overplaying the "headstrong" angle, nor the "too easily persuaded." She goes right up there with Du Maurier for those that write complex female characters for me. Katya doesn't necessarily mistake one thing for another, but she thinks certain things are equivalent when she shouldn't. Things like affection/attention, lust/love, romance/romantic, and especially being in love and being paid. That last is especially important to her character as a working-class girl.

But what I found most intriguing here was the way she chose to characterize Marcus Kidder—very old, a little whimsical, a children's book author, kind of grandfatherly in Katya's eyes. Almost as if to temper the reader's impulse to romanticize the situation from the get-go, even though she will complicate that later with all his talk of soulmates and the inherent romanticism of that sentiment.

There were a couple of things I wasn't quite on board with. The pacing was a little off, too slow in some parts and the sinister build wasn't necessarily all there for me. But I do appreciate the turns this took toward the end—how JCO turned My Fair Lady to Death and the Maiden to Death as the Maiden. Clever and intriguing.