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Customer Reviews of A Bloodsmoor Romance

19 C feminism in a funny, surprising Cinderella story
It's popular in some circles to turn up noses at "romance" novels. If you're in one of those, don't turn up your nose at this one! In it Oates has captured the style of the 19th Century Gothic Romance novel down the the last crossed t and dotted i. It's also a beautifully researched picture of how women lived in the late-1800s, written in the language of the time -- or at least a very good simulation of it. 20th century feminism in 19th century guise.

It's about women's roles in society and the rules they lived by. A fast-moving tale full of imaginative twists -- there's a wedding night scene that's the funniest and the most surprising I've read.

The story begins with the introduction to a surly Cinderella-type with step sisters who definitely are not Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. It's September, 1879. All five girls are spoiled and privileged, living lives of ease in the white-columned splendor of Kiddemaster Hall, near the Bloodsmoor River in Pennsylvania.

The girls are relaxing in the gazebo after a grueling party. Deirdre (did they really name girls Deirdre in those days?), who is our Cinderella, becomes angry and stalks down the path to the river. Suddenly a giant black balloon dips from the sky and carries her away. The book describes the fates of the girls for the next 20 years in rich and lively prose.

Oates takes the romance novel and skewers it with social satire. Her volume of work is prodigious -- she has probably written more in a wider variety of style and genres than any other contemporary author. Whether romance, horror, science fiction, mainstream, mystery, short story collection, essays, criticism or poetry, her work excels. Joyce Carol Oates is the Renaissance Woman on the modern American literary scene and A BLOODSMOOR ROMANCE eclipses the genre.

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A marvelous work--satire, humor, twist the knife laughs
This book provides about as much fun as you can ask for in a novel. Without being at all like him in style or story--this book reminds me of a Vonnegut romp: The dry wit; The ludicrous behavior of the characters; The lampooning of our society's absurdities, especially as they apply to attitudes toward and treatment of women. It keeps you smirking, smiling and from time-to-time breaking out in full belly laughs-and these are laughs that do not leave you for days-because there is plenty to think about along with the laughs. Oates has merged a variety of literary styles; the romance, the 19th century classic, the woman's novel, etc and she brews up a broadside that is beyond amusing: It is in fact social commentary and it is social commentary at it best. There is no preaching, nothing every gets too serious. But you would have to be as dumb as a rock to miss the points that are being made. For instance, there are some of the most amazingly funny sex scenes that you can imagine in this book--and while no one could read them and not howl--it is also mighty serious stuff that anyone's sexuality could be so distorted in the name of being proper. Oates employs the technique of a having a narrator who, in her capacity as being responsible for chronicling a family's history, tells the reader what proper folks ought to think about the goings-on--and exactly when and where we ought to be shocked and alarmed. Meanwhile, there is the story itself, which reveals as much lunacy about our culture as does the narrator. Plus there is the actual story, which is a kick, full of cameo appearances of famous people acting like themselves as if we were reading a historical biography. Stir it all up, adding heaping doses of tongue-in cheek and riotous activity, and you find the book is a regular page-turner. Get this book. Read it. You will be glad you did and you will be looking for copies to give to your best friends...the ones who understand the worth and power and the fun that can be had in a great novel. Thanks you Ms. Oates-what a job you did, what a gift you gave with this one!

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A Bloodsmoor Romance
I am actually rereading this book currently...it is so impressive; the kind of book i read while i burn candles and listen to gothic music. b/c i am a dork. but it is pretty thrilling and evocative and though Oates' vernacular gets a little heavy, sometimes, I keep thinking about what a great movie it would make, if it was in the right hands. And I don't see it so much as a parody, myself. I mean parts of it are definitely very ironic, but I think there's a lot more to it than that. Though I do read it and think about how, when I read Little Women and like books when I was younger, i wondered if sex wasn't some modern invention.