A review by kaseyd
Wonderland by Joyce Carol Oates
3.0
I did not particularly enjoy this book. It was very well-written, as can only be expected by Joyce Carol Oates, but it was almost too difficult to read at points. There were times I put the book down in disgust and felt myself on the verge of tears--though sometimes this is the mark of an excellent writer, here it was just completely unnecessary.
I would NOT recommend this be read by anybody with any type of eating disorder or body issues. There are overly descriptive tellings of binge eating and weight that were altogether unhealthy for me to be reading, and there was a chilling, overly-detailed description of a gynecologist visit that made me sick to my stomach. I do not think that these scenes were necessary to the novel at all. There is nothing they conveyed that was not already understood or that couldn't have been just as easy to grasp through the use of less disturbing imagery.
This story felt like Oates was trying to put every small tragedy and disturbing scene possible into one book, just for the fun of it. It really did not feel like the novel had an overarching purpose, moral, anything.
I would NOT recommend this be read by anybody with any type of eating disorder or body issues. There are overly descriptive tellings of binge eating and weight that were altogether unhealthy for me to be reading, and there was a chilling, overly-detailed description of a gynecologist visit that made me sick to my stomach. I do not think that these scenes were necessary to the novel at all. There is nothing they conveyed that was not already understood or that couldn't have been just as easy to grasp through the use of less disturbing imagery.
This story felt like Oates was trying to put every small tragedy and disturbing scene possible into one book, just for the fun of it. It really did not feel like the novel had an overarching purpose, moral, anything.