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I love this book so much that I find it difficult to write about it without gushing. I mean, there is the obvious reason why, which is that it's about a girl gang that targets predatory men and boys - and of course, horrible pet shops - with a sense of prefeminist vengeance. Feminist vigilantism appeals to me on this base, primal level, even if I have problems with violence in general. The book said a lot about the time and place in which everything took place. The sharp class divides, the socia...
Foxfire is a book that read itself. At first, I found the choppy stream-of-consciousness style hard to deal with. I had to re-read the first few pages several times. But after the first third, or so, I began to get a feel for the odd prose style. The run-on sentences, capital letters, and lack of punctuation dragged my eye across the page and made the book very difficult to put down. I read most of the last two hundred pages in a single sitting and can’t remember the last time I finished a book
Really liked this one. It was like an all-girl version of Fight Club, set in 1950s New York. Strong female characters who are determined, and relentless, and stick to their convictions. They are teenagers, so some of their ideas aren't the brightest, but the core of the story is female empowerment in the face of sexism, and going against societal norms.
Foxfire never says die.I have a Tattoo, based from this Book and the Movie that followed,...that starred Angelina Jolie. ;)It's the story of a group of misfit girls, who fight back. Yes, they are a girl gang, but they aren't the offshoot of a boy gang. They aren't the girls of some local hoods. They are the ones running the show.You are my Heart, Joyce. Foxfire Forever.
Foxfire is the book that impacted me the most in Middle school. Take that as you must, but I'm happy to see that, unlike The Catcher in the Rye, it holds up reading it with adult eyes. Of course, now, 10 years older than the last time I read it, I find issues with some of the characters I loved as a teenager, but I can see a desperation and naivete I couldn't see before. This book is one of many that cements Oates into the the hall of fame of awesome American writers.
If rock'n'roll is your ideal, then this is a book you want to read. Not that Foxfire deals explicitly with music at any point, but Oates is able to distill that same electricity.The story is set in the 50s, but, except for a few scattered cultural markers, it could just as easily be set in the contemporary moment. And I read it in that context. Nothing felt put on, or "for show." I've known women like the characters in this book, including some close friends I've gotten to know over the years. T...
If I wasn’t reading this for a book club it would have been a hard DNF at about 30%. But I’m glad I finished it because it turns out it was fun to discuss it even if it wasn’t fun to read. I don’t like stream of consciousness writing; it always seems to me to be more interesting for the author than for the reader, and this was a case in point. The idea sounded good: a girl gang with a charismatic leader running rampant in 1950s upstate New York. Unfortunately the execution was pretty dull; skewe...
I see Joyce Carol Oates as being a heavy hitter in the literary fiction genre. She has written many books and they’re stuffed full of heavy themes. In my mind I give her a sort of royal status of longterm women writers; she pairs well with Margaret Atwood. Oddly I have also given them masculine sounding monikers, as if they are athletic celebrities: J.C.O.!! Margaret F*_’-ing Atwood!! Real bro talk like.The Firefox gang shown here is really something. Excellently, they’re all teenagers, and they...
This is a really fun and exciting read, my favorite JCO work thus far. Here, Joyce Carol Oates is at her best. With such a young cast of characters Oates is at full liberty to show the smooth transition between social marginalization in childhood and an adult life that was far from ideal, a life of thievery. The links between poverty, social marginalization, institutionalization, and crime are clear to those who have experienced them. Never have I found a work of fiction that combines all these
I absolutely loved this book with its great characters of Maddy-Monkey and Legs Sadovsky. Often written in Oates' semi-stream-of-consciousness style (with the attendant lack of punctuation), it takes the reader on a wild adolescent ride with (as always) some points of social commentary along the way. It certainly provides its own irreverant take on "the sisterhood is powerful." As was the case with Oates' "Man Crazy" (though perhaps, I think, a little less so), this book may not be to everyone's...
Not quite 4 stars, more 3.5 ish. I liked the movie and then read the book. Ah, back then Angelina was so hot. Between Foxfire, Gia, and Hackers, I was smitten. Now her face annoys me. Go away already, Angelina.Got off on a tangent. I remember the book being decent, if not entirely believable. This "gang of girls" was not intimidating whatsoever imo. And like with the movie, I wanted more overt examination of the queerness.
I'm getting a Foxfire tattoo unless somebody stops me.If you're a stickler for grammar, you should skip this one. In fact, you should skip all fiction and just read the dicionary.Update: I got that tattoo.
A great read in terms of theme, pretty much everything that always pulls me into a novel. I did, however, struggle at times to get into a flow due to the writing style.
Just 'eh.' Not as exciting as a book about a girl gang should be.
Every now and then you find an atmosphere created by a story like this that is so fresh and exciting and raw, so niche and unique, that it completely swallows you whole and drowns you in its presence, where it's all you can think about for days and weeks, wishing and wanting hopelessly to be back within its pages. I absolutely fell in love with this book, it didn't take long actually, (by the end of the back cover in the bookstore I had already given it my heart). It soon became everything I had...