I too thought that there was too much detail. First of all, as i had said in class, i didn't like the way he gave the reader detailed directions to get to High Point Farm... to me this was just a waste of ink and paper... also, i thought it was annoying that everytime we met a new character he felt the need to give us five pages of anecdotes that explain the characters' personalities... i understand that its good to give us some kind of background for each of the characters, but the way it was done in this book really took away from the story.

another thing that bothered me was the language that was used in the book... When i was growing up teachers told me not to use the same words over and over again (for example, don't always say "angry," find synonyms <sp?>) and in this book it seemed like joyce carol oats found one synonym "Incensed" <sp, again?> and used it over and over again... while it's a good word, i think it would have made the book a bit better if she had tried to use other words...