That is what everyone says about Joyce Carol Oates and I guess that is true, but grown-up isn't always better, and in this case I would probably have been better off rereading Cujo. I mean, I like JCO but sometimes I wonder if that is because I know I am supposed to like her. She's written more books than anybody, she's probably going to win a Nobel Prize, she discovered Jonathan Safran Foer (who, say what you will, authored Eating Animals which absolves him of all sins in my book) blah blah blah it's like, I KNOW she's great, but still sometimes she just...misses. In this one, a 16-year-old girl from South Jersey finds herself entangled in a warped relationship with a wealthy septuagenarian and...I don't know. You can probably guess what happens if you have ever read anything else by this woman. It's like, FINE, or whatever and the writing is beautiful but she's no Elif Batuman, whose website is here if you want to ogle.
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