2.5 really. I'm not sure what happened here. These stories weren't cohesive and many of them weren't particularly interesting if not outright boring. I had to force myself to keep going through sections. A few of the stories were actually quite good (Strip Poker, Bleeed, Vena Cava)---tense, dark, horrific, hard to read in a very readable way. But as a whole collection this was lackluster. The title of the collection is a giant question mark to me as well. There was no "mystery" and only very brief moments of "suspense." These just seemed like exercises with the loosest of themes joining them together. I enjoy the unsettling stories of Joyce Carol Oates. You wait for something horrible to happen and it does or it doesn't, and you are more disturbed by the latter. I listened to this on Audiobook and I think that did it a disservice because the language is so rich, it' easy to miss chunks of it while you're trying to weave through traffic while texting. I feel the need to seek out the book and read it off the page, with a cat in my lap.
I was absolutely blown away by "The Spill," "Nowhere" and "Bleeed."
—Mohana
very creepy...yet I kept reading...not for most, I'd say!
—Rita
Disturbing look into love that's gone wrong.
—Adynutza
Fiercely depressing, unexpected and creepy.
—narutoracer
Very disturbing but uneven collection.
—supermarylou
