A review by hopebrasfield
Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates

5.0

This is the first Joyce Carol Oates book I've read, I think! 

Weird to have read this just after Jenny Offill's book, Weather, as they both include themes around limerence and proximity. And to have read them both just after Vincent Bevins' book, Jakarta Method? Might not seem obvious but these three books do certainly "go" together. 

Memorable quotes: 

"For nowhere are you so lonely as in the midst of a party." 

"There is no state more terrifying than loneliness though you would not think so, when you are not lonely; when are you are secure in 'your' life." 

"The intimacy born of sheer proximity is a curious phenomenon--there is something mocking in it." 

 

By the end of the novel the message becomes clear, "you can be happy so long as you suck it up and forget everything you've learned."