Laurie S. (LaurieS) reviewed on 7/29/2011 + 504 more book reviews

I've enjoyed the few books I've read by Joyce Carol Oates. She always has some nicely dark edges to her stories and never bloats them with useless prose and description. When I first saw this one while nosing around here on someone's goodreads bookshelf the cover intrigued me and I knew I had to check it out.

Set in the 1970's this short book is about a young college student named Gillian who has a painful crush on one of her professor's who makes it a habit, it seems, to seduce his young charges with his piercing eyes and fierce poetry critiques and then brings them home where his wife drugs them and they all have sex . This professor seems to enjoy breaking down these young women, first by forcing them to write out their darkest secrets for class and then by the sex and drugs. He seems a bit slimy and horribly unlikable to me but I'm not a naive 20-something coming of age in the 70's. . . This book leaves a lot to the imagination which is almost worse than spelling it out in gory detail. I enjoyed it but in the end am relieved it was only a novella because I don't think I'd want to spend any more time with these people.

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