Reviews

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

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andihoelzel's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

flowchelle's review

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challenging dark informative sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I’ve waited a few days to put my review down about this book. I still don’t know how I feel about it! I am finding it difficult to describe what I think about topics like the exposure and exploration of the true nature of drug abuse and life in the foster system. I can’t say I ‘enjoyed’ it because I didn’t. I can say that it impacted me. I can say that I thought about Demon for hours after I put down this book. But I have had people around me say they “loved” this book and that sounds so odd to me. I truly disliked this book. I constantly wanted to just give Demon a god damn hug! The heart wrenching detail that Barbara included was too much for me but I know that’s why she included it. Overall, I’m just glad that it ended on a decent note and not with him dying. I couldn’t stop thinking of Tyler Childers song ‘nose on the grindstone’.

Content Warnings

thiefofmemory's review

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adventurous emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

jaina8851's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I wrote up a whole multi-paragraph review for this book and lost it, so I'm going to do my best to recreate it 😑 The TL;DR is that I think this book is an absolute masterpiece.

This book was recommended to me by a friend who suggested that if I hadn't ever read David Copperfield, that I should read that first and then read this. I am SO glad that I read these back to back! I was really impressed by the way that Demon Copperhead follows the story of David Copperfield beat for beat from beginning to end. This isn't just "based on" the original, it is a lovingly and meticulously crafted modern version. Most impressive to me was recognizing actual bits of the original text that she had lifted and slightly changed to incorporate. The first time that I noticed this, I screeched to a halt while reading and pulled up the original text and was filled with euphoric glee to read the two passages side by side. These sorts of easter eggs for readers who were very familiar with the original text really enhanced my experience of reading. Also, I straight up laughed out loud when I figured out who U-Haul Pyles was (took me a few pages). Doesn't have *quite* the same immediately ominous ring to it as Uriah Heep, but what an incredibly clever play on the name.

I saw some other reviewers referring to this story as trauma porn and not enjoying it or DNFing for that reason. I had almost the opposite experience. Reading this book with modern language and a contemporary setting made me appreciate the original so much more. I'm not sure whether it was the 19th century tone of Dickens' writing or the unfamiliar setting/time, but I felt much more detached from David Copperfield's struggles. I enjoyed the book but the depth of the devastation of such a young boy going through the things he suffered didn't land quite as strongly for me. When I read about Demon's experiences, on the other hand, it felt so much more visceral and raw. I'm not usually a person who enjoys anything that could be considered a spoiler, but knowing the basic beats of the story gave me a particular sense of dread as we approached moments of tragedy in the story because I could see them coming. Even with that though, it still hit me like a punch to the chest each time. For a specific example,

when Demon is running away and trying to reach his grandmother's house, I was like, "oh no, this is going to go so badly, you're going to get robbed of all your hard earned money and THEN what are you going to do?!"

But when it actually played out, it hit me so hard because I could more easily put myself in his shoes and imagine his terror and despair because I could more easily picture the actual setting and the danger he would be in than when the comparable event happened in the original. So many of the experiences that Demon had made me reflect about David's comparable experience and feel doubly gutted to consider that BOTH of them were young boys living through these traumatic and desperate lives, and it gave me so much more of an appreciation for *just how bad* things were in David's story as well.

Overall I found this book to be a dizzying combination of some of the most well-written take-your-breath-away prose I've read in a while and a playful Easter egg hunt. It's made me even more interested in reading back-to-back classics and modern retellings, but I feel like I've spoiled myself for the experience because I'm skeptical that any of them will be as exquisitely well done as this one was!