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A review by bobthebookerer
Babysitter by Joyce Carol Oates
5.0
This book is a wild ride- one which made me scared, uneasy and disgusted in deep, visceral ways, but was incredible.
The title belies the cruelty at the heart of the book- a slew of children go missing, with the perpetrator being nicknamed, with horrible irony, the 'Babysitter'. In the midst of this, we get several plotlines of people who are caught up and complicit in what is happening, and others just trying to survive and make sense of something that seems vastly unknowable.
The opening scene feels like it almost resists the urge of a standard book covering these themes, with almost all the action taking place inside a character's head as she heads towards a hotel room, but in many ways it sets up the ghastly horror within so many of the characters.
The writing is unflinching, raw, and incredibly deft, often navigating especially tricky descriptions with exquisite mastery. Oates will often describe a character in one or two withering sentences, and then quickly move on to the action (a particular favourite was this description: "Upright rodent. Halfway metamorphosed into a man.")
This is a deeply uncomfortable read in many ways, and pretty much every content warning applies for this book, but this book held me in its deathly grip, and made me almost miss several train stations.
I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.
The title belies the cruelty at the heart of the book- a slew of children go missing, with the perpetrator being nicknamed, with horrible irony, the 'Babysitter'. In the midst of this, we get several plotlines of people who are caught up and complicit in what is happening, and others just trying to survive and make sense of something that seems vastly unknowable.
The opening scene feels like it almost resists the urge of a standard book covering these themes, with almost all the action taking place inside a character's head as she heads towards a hotel room, but in many ways it sets up the ghastly horror within so many of the characters.
The writing is unflinching, raw, and incredibly deft, often navigating especially tricky descriptions with exquisite mastery. Oates will often describe a character in one or two withering sentences, and then quickly move on to the action (a particular favourite was this description: "Upright rodent. Halfway metamorphosed into a man.")
This is a deeply uncomfortable read in many ways, and pretty much every content warning applies for this book, but this book held me in its deathly grip, and made me almost miss several train stations.
I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.