A review by stellahadz
Black Girl/White Girl by Joyce Carol Oates

mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

This is my first Joyce Carol Oates novel, and I know she's very highly regarded, but I wasn't impressed with this book. There were two very interesting storylines: Genna's relationship with her family, their privilege, and their history; and her relationship with her roommate, Minette, whom she tried and failed to befriend before her untimely death. I didn't think either storyline was fleshed out to the extent that it deserved, and the characters felt very flat, despite having interesting backstories. Ultimately I just wasn't sure what the point of the story was, and I also wasn't a fan of how the Black characters were described sometimes (lots of focus on their bodies and how they spoke). I don't know enough about Oates as a person to know whether that's a reflection of her own biases or Genna's. I was expecting it to be a mystery novel, or an exploration of white guilt, or maybe a bit of both, but ultimately it didn't deliver on either of those things (although some of the musings on white liberalism seem pretty ahead of their time for a book written in 2006 by a white author?) 

I'm definitely willing to give Oates another shot, because she's written so many books that I feel like there's bound to be something I like. 
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