Review of Beasts by Joyce Carol Oates

A more succinct example of Dark Academia than The Secret History, and in my opinion, better. Better yet, it can be read in one sitting. 

The only criteria I require a book to fulfill to earn a five-star rating from me is that I can’t stop reading. And this book certainly fulfils that requirement.

While I find most of JCO’s books hit or miss, this one was a perfect condensation of gothic atmosphere
and style in a quick-read format, somewhat less dense than her typical Gothic style, designed to keep the pages turning on their own.

A student in a girl’s school has eyes for an eccentric poetry teacher. You can predict how this will go. There is an arsonist on campus. The mystery is thick but not surprising. The chill air permeates throughout the sparse description of an old-fashioned book-lined campus where liberal arts is somehow respected. No cell phones or social media or other modern distractions. People actually wrote their own term papers during the time period in which this took place.

The scary definition of love our narrator uses to interpret her feelings lead her down a destructive path, where, despite clear evidence of her trajectory, she cannot help but hurtle into it.

Love can be a fire that consumes the loved one or the one who loves. And some people wouldn’t have it any other way.