Review: Miao Dao

Miao Dao by Joyce Carol Oates
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is part of the Dark Corners Collection of Amazon Original Stories. It is a standalone short story.

Amazingly, I have never read Joyce Carol Oates before. She is such a prolific writer that you would think I would have. Nope. When I saw this for free through Amazon, I thought it would be a good chance to see what she's all about.

This story is not for the squeamish. This is an examination of how hard it can be to be 13, a girl, and going through puberty. The taunting and teasing, the loneliness of physically developing faster than your peers, and the grossness of some adult males. If you are triggered by child abuse, I would not recommend this book to you. It's very uncomfortable. It is classified as horror because there are also two murders.

I almost gave this story three stars. I didn't enjoy it, and I would say maybe you aren't meant to enjoy it. In the end, I added a star for the feral cat plotline. While I didn't have the difficult childhood Mia, the main character did, I could relate completely to her fascination with the feral cat colony, the desire to befriend them, and the crushing despair when other people are cruel to them. In that sense, I was that little girl. That deserved its own recognition.

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