If there was one down side, I felt it was in the ending. It may well have been realistic in a case such as this and may well mirror a real child abduction case, but it didn't seem to quite fit in with much of what had come before. It was still a well written and emotionally expressed section of the novel, but after all that had come before I struggled a little to adjust to the change of pace and direction that resulted.
However, all that has come before was so good that this slightly weaker ending didn't spoil the book, it just took some of the edge away from it. Fans of Joyce Carol Oates' work will certainly enjoy ''Daddy Love'', as it's well in keeping with her usual style and quality of writing. It may be a little too dark for readers not used to the genre, although those that have read stories of abuse like [[Anorexic by Anna Paterson]] or the work of Dave Pelzer could be more used to this kind of story and may find this both a realistic and well -written example of that story, even as fictional as it is.
Joyce Carol Oates is an author worth reading more of and I strongly recommend [[The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares by Joyce Carol Oates|The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares]]. We can also recommend [[The Triumph of the Spider Monkey by Joyce Carol Oates]].
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