A girl comes of age with a vengeance—and help from a friend—in a tale of unnerving suspense from National Book Award winner and literary master Joyce Carol Oates.Bad things have been happening since Mia began to mature. Her dad left. Boys at school can’t keep their hands to themselves. A lecherous stepfather has moved in. Her only refuge is an abandoned lot on her suburban cul-de-sac, crawling … crawling with feral felines—one of which follows Mia home. Ghostly white and affectionate, she is Mia’s new companion and—as Mia’s tormenters will soon discover—her fierce protector.
Joyce Carol Oates’s Miao Dao is part of Dark Corners, a collection of seven heart-stopping short stories by bestselling authors who give you so many new reasons to be afraid. Each story can be read in a single sitting. Or, if you have the nerve, you can listen all by yourself in the dark.
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I am a fan of Oates, to begin with, so a creepier tale that incorporates her depth of the human condition was a match made in heaven for me. There seemed to be a predictability to the story, but at the very end, a who done it type of twist brought the story to a great close. One of the more significant characters is a cat (the title character) and as a cat lover, that made the story more engaging for me as well.
Rating:
Genre: Contemporary
The story is about a thirteen-year-old girl, Mia who goes through her parents’ divorce, and then her mom marrying another man who tries to abuse her sexually. In addition to all that, she struggles at school because she repeatedly gets bullied by other kids. For Mia, the only escape she has is her daily visits to an isolated lot that has lots of feral cats. Mia loved those cats even if they kept their distance. At some time she even adopts a feral kitten and names it, Miao Dao!
I was conflicted while rating this book between 3 and 4 stars. Despite liking the story I still could not swallow my disappointment that this was supposed to be a horror story but it was not! You see the cover and you get the vibes of an atmospheric horror story but this book lacked even the chilling atmosphere of horror stories to call it a dark one. It is just a story about a girl who goes through lots of hardships in school and at home. There is nothing wrong with the story and it is still good but this should’ve not been in the Dark Corners Collection. Get into it as a contemporary story and you might like the story. As a horror, you will definitely be disappointed.
A girl coming of age finds refuge from ALL EVIL MEN with feral cats, but when she loses the one she brings into her home she becomes darker and darker.
Some serious men-hating in this one and I told myself it was just the main character’s POV at first, but that got harder and harder to believe as it went on. All the characters besides Mia are just there to be there, and have no real personality and only do things to advance what little plot there is.
But mostly, it was just boring. Every time it got remotely interesting, it’d just drag out the point and beat it to death. Boys like boobs.. men are bad… got it, move on to some story already… By the time it gets to the obvious end, I wasn’t scared or saddened, or anything other than relieved it was finally over.
This will be the longest sixty-six pages you’ll ever read, go snuggle with your cat instead.
Miao Dao by Joyce Carol Pages and narrated by Any Landon is a pretty good semi-final creepy story where the listener/reader is on the side of the creepy! A girl is bullied in a sexual way at school daily. Meanwhile at home her mom remarried. She also loved the stray feral cats in the vacant lot. She cou!d relate to them. This is a combo of all these elements. Loved the plot. Great narration too.