When The Sky Blue Ball comes soaring over the fence, a high-school girl is confronted with the haunting memory of childhood. A jealous teen lets her cousin go off alone with a dangerous Capricorn, aware of the terrifying possibilities. A vulnerable young girl cunningly outwits a menacing stranger and exults in her newfound power, surviving the first of many Small Avalanches.
In these twelve riveting tales, master storyteller Joyce Carol Oates visits the dark, enigmatic psyche of the teenage years. Intense and unnerving, uplifting and triumphant, the stories in this collection explore the fateful consequences of the choices we make in our everyday lives.
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[Her name was Connie (WHERE ARE YOU GOING, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?)]***
(HarperTeen, 17 February 2004, first published 18 March 2003, 400 pages, paperback, #popsugarreadingchallenge 2019, a book with a plant in the title or on the cover, bought from @AmazonUK)
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This is one of JCO's earlier collections of short stories. It can be counted among her best. Some of the stories here crop up in other collections so I've read them several times and others were brand new. There's a good mix of stories. These are YA stories so all of the character are teens, older teen, say fifteen and up. Ever story is excellent. The stand-out story is her much revered Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? This story is much collected and anthologised and appears in several of her collections. I've read it multiple times and still love it as much. I also loved Haunted, a re-read and Live after High School.
