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My Life as a Rat
My Life as a Rat: A Novel | Joyce Carol Oates
8 posts | 8 read | 12 to read
A painful truth of family life: the most tender emotions can change in an instant. You think your parents love you but is it you they love, or the child who is theirs? --Joyce Carol Oates, My Life as a Rat Which should prevail: loyalty to family or loyalty to the truth? Is telling the truth ever a mistake and is lying for ones family ever justified? Can one do the right thing, but bitterly regret it? My Life as a Rat follows Violet Rue Kerrigan, a young woman who looks back upon her life in exile from her family following her testimony, at age twelve, concerning what she knew to be the racist murder of an African-American boy by her older brothers. In a succession of vividly recalled episodes Violet contemplates the circumstances of her life as the initially beloved youngest child of seven Kerrigan children who inadvertently informs on her brothers, setting into motion their arrests and convictions and her own long estrangement. Arresting and poignant, My Life as a Rat traces a life of banishment from a familybanishment from parents, siblings, and the Churchthat forces Violet to discover her own identity, to break the powerful spell of family, and to emerge from her long exile as a rat into a transformed life.
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Martta
My Life as a Rat: A Novel | Joyce Carol Oates
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My friend gave me a gift sertificate to a bookstore for Christmas and I used half of it today. I decided to get this. Have heard a lot of good about it. 😊

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amyf0x
My Life as a Rat: A Novel | Joyce Carol Oates
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Pickpick

Violet‘s childhood confession of witnessing her brothers‘ terrible crime leads to her family‘s unequivocal rejection and a life of immense loneliness.

Read September 24 - October 7
Rated 3/5 ⭐️
Book 40/60

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Wildly_Bookish
My Life as a Rat: A Novel | Joyce Carol Oates
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"My wish is to live a life in which emotions come slowly as clouds on a calm day. You see the approach, you contemplate the beauty of the cloud, you observe it passing, you let it go. You do not dwell upon what you have seen, you do not regret it. You are content to understand that the identical cloud will never come again, no matter how beautiful, unique. You do not weep at its loss."

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Wildly_Bookish
My Life as a Rat: A Novel | Joyce Carol Oates
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Reading this book for my #IRL #bookclub #everythingbutselfhelp.

12 likes1 stack add
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Bookpearl
My Life as a Rat: A Novel | Joyce Carol Oates
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Dear baby girl...this story is going to stick with me forever. Parents are supposed to protect and provide and the two idiots you wanted to love you so badly, failed! 😭 This book discussion will be intense and I can‘t wait!

Reggie Yikes!!!!stacked. 4y
7 likes1 stack add1 comment
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Simona
My Life as a Rat: A Novel | Joyce Carol Oates
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Pickpick

12 yo Violet Rue is girl from large family where loyalty is everything, she breaks that rule becoming a rat. Excluded from the family, living with the aunt, her life becomes a nightmare and a vicious cycle of a guilt. It‘s a extremely dark, melancholic story exploring race, gander, class, forgiveness and inner struggles of a abused child. Between 3 and 4 ⭐️.

56 likes3 stack adds
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Clare_Riley
My Life as a Rat: A Novel | Joyce Carol Oates
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Why am I only just reading a Joyce Carol Oates book NOW?! Well, this won‘t be the last book of hers that I‘ll read, that‘s for sure. A child is ostracised from her family, and it affects the rest of her life and her self esteem. How could it not? If any book character ever needed to be forcibly removed from her storyline and hugged, then this is that character. It really left me feeling such sadness for her. Highly recommended.

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Michellesibs
My Life as a Rat: A Novel | Joyce Carol Oates
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Joyce Carol Oats is a name that is always popping up so I thought it was about time I gave her a whirl.
Find my full review here and feel free to add me (I love recommendations)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2639147135?book_show_action=false&from_rev...

TrishB I‘ve had my eye on this one 👍🏻 5y
Michellesibs @TrishB I don't imagine it will blow anyone away but it's definitely worth a read 🙂 5y
52 likes2 comments