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162 reviews for:
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?: Selected Early Stories
Joyce Carol Oates
4.04 AVERAGE
162 reviews for:
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?: Selected Early Stories
Joyce Carol Oates
4.04 AVERAGE
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Well, consider me unsettled!
This story gave me goosebumps. What a creepy story!
(After some research, I found out that this story was inspired by Charles Schmid, an American serial killer.)
(After some research, I found out that this story was inspired by Charles Schmid, an American serial killer.)
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Super creepy! I read this book at a friend's suggestion. It's not very multilayered, but it definitely delivers on the scariness factor. It also feels very real and very vulnerable. I liked that it did not suffer from stupid character syndrome as many similar horror stories do. Connie just felt real and she was able to use her head to make decisions that, terrifyingly, I know are ones that I would have made also.
read the original short story. still reading the ancillary articles about the true events that inspired it and critiques (assuming they heap praise to be included in a book about a short story). overall, i am underimpressed, although it could be that my wife (overly?) hyped it, or this could be one of those cases where it was groundbreaking in its time (the '60s), but our culture is throughly jaded to psychopaths by 2011 (saw an article asserting that some effective CEOs were clinical psychopaths, Dexter makes them cute and cuddly, and Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho completely desensitizes).
i couldn't help comparing this to 'the lottery' by shirley jackson, the original 'chilling' short story, to which all must be compared, imo. and clearly, it fell short of that. will update with more after i read all the commentary.
i couldn't help comparing this to 'the lottery' by shirley jackson, the original 'chilling' short story, to which all must be compared, imo. and clearly, it fell short of that. will update with more after i read all the commentary.
A completely hopeless read. I can see why this was on a scariest short story list. What an end that is coming and no way out in sight.
So... JCO is a genius. She is. Not all of us see it, because her narrative cleverness is delivered in the less pretentious way possible, but the way she describes without describing, with emotions portrayed mostly by dialog, I think it's rare. And genial.