(4.5 rounded down) Man, I forgot how absolutely gutting Joyce Carol Oates’ work can be. This is a book about secrets, and not light ones, either. Our plot revolves around an English teacher at a private academy, Francis Fox, and just exactly who he is after his car is discovered in a pond and dismembered body parts are found near the car. Oates is an extremely prolific writer and her prose is razor-sharp. She doesn’t hold back and as this book is over 600 pages, it is a lot to take in. Fox is a character I think only Oates could bring to life. The synopsis likens him to Tom Ripley and that feels apt; he is cunning and insidious and manipulative. All of the content warnings for this one. I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.

Excellent read. Great descriptive language and prose as Oates always delivers. The characters were well developed and plot well thought out.

DNF - while I appreciate the advanced copy, the story line was just too disturbing for me.
Thank you to NetGalley

Good lord, this book!

First, despite the fact that the summary makes it pretty clear exactly what sort of dark and disturbing secrets we can expect to read here, I’d kind of forgotten that these are secrets as written by Joyce Carol Oates. And in pure Oates fashion, they are offered in such a sinuous way that each and every chapter just ends up more and more of a gut punch. The novel hurts.

If you’re a content warning sort of a reader, consider yourself WARNED (caps fully intended) – this can be very hard to read.

It’s also intelligent, insidious, and an absolute page turner of a novel. Oates has a habit of giving us all the darkest parts of characters – the things you really don’t want to think about. And at 600+ pages, you’re going to think about those things…a lot.

The ending is satisfying. It’s right.

The book will stay with me. Not sure I’m thrilled about that, but it was definitely the kind of book that will keep you reading!

• ARC via Publisher

The SA of a child in the perspective of the abuser was too much for me. DNF at 10%, not something I could personally get through.
The story seems interesting and I can sense the possible revenge plot coming. But without knowing if there are more scenes described like the first encounter, I cannot keep reading.