Book Review: The Falls
Aug. 28th, 2006 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarahmichelefI'm way behind on my book reviews - finished 2 books recently and haven't said anything about them! (Oh, the horror!)
While we were on vacation in Maine, I read Joyce Carol Oates' The Falls, which was a gift* from my dad, largely on the basis of the geography.
This was the first Oates that I've read. I enjoyed it, as much as you can enjoy a book in which you don't particularly like the main character. I found Ariah to be ... well, not very likable. Dirk I did like, but (and I realize that this is kind of the point), her constant harping that he would leave her someday really made it a self-fulfilling prophecy. I did find the geography aspect of it entertaining... I might find it even more so if I actually lived in Niagara (much as I was thoroughly entertained to read Tracy Kidder's Home Town a couple of years after we moved to WMass - any folks who've spent any amount of time in Noho and haven't read it should do so).
Anyway. I definitely will read some more Oates, but it'll be either when I'm in a really happy place or in a really depressed and wallowing-in-it place.
*My family has this thing where rather than just passing books on after we've read them, we wait for gift-giving occasions and wrap up the pre-read books to give. Of course, Mom also reads newly-purchased gift books BEFORE she gifts them. So, y'know...
While we were on vacation in Maine, I read Joyce Carol Oates' The Falls, which was a gift* from my dad, largely on the basis of the geography.
This was the first Oates that I've read. I enjoyed it, as much as you can enjoy a book in which you don't particularly like the main character. I found Ariah to be ... well, not very likable. Dirk I did like, but (and I realize that this is kind of the point), her constant harping that he would leave her someday really made it a self-fulfilling prophecy. I did find the geography aspect of it entertaining... I might find it even more so if I actually lived in Niagara (much as I was thoroughly entertained to read Tracy Kidder's Home Town a couple of years after we moved to WMass - any folks who've spent any amount of time in Noho and haven't read it should do so).
Anyway. I definitely will read some more Oates, but it'll be either when I'm in a really happy place or in a really depressed and wallowing-in-it place.
*My family has this thing where rather than just passing books on after we've read them, we wait for gift-giving occasions and wrap up the pre-read books to give. Of course, Mom also reads newly-purchased gift books BEFORE she gifts them. So, y'know...
