A review by emik13
The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates

4.0

Joyce Carol Oates is one of those insta-buy authors for me, and this was her first novel that I've read! It was a bit difficult for me to get into at first, since it's definitely character driven rather than plot driven, and it took me a while to warm up to all the characters. That said, I loved the longitudinal view it took of everyone's lives, and how differently all of them turned out, even though they were all connected by the same event. And once I was warmed up to the characters, I was hooked.

I'm often unhappy with the ending of character driven books, because by the time I've reached the end, I'm in love with all of the characters too much for there to be a truly satisfying ending. But Joyce Carol Oates is an amazing storyteller, and doesn't shy away from writing characters that are messy and flawed and imperfect, which ultimately made the ending a good one for me.