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Reviews tagging 'Body shaming'

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

11 reviews

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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vivienneruth's profile picture

vivienneruth's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 40%

I really love the writing and the story, but it’s too heavy for me!! Working with kids just like Damon had this hitting a little too close to home and it’s fucking with my head. 

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

It's been a long time since a book gripped my emotions the way Kingsolver did in "Demon Copperhead". As a mother, and as someone who had bad relationships and dabbled in drugs in my teens, this book accurately reflected the struggles of adolescence in a poverty-stricken community. 

I found myself throughout the day thinking about the characters in the book as if they were people I knew in real life. I wanted to yell at the characters, and hold Daemon and give him good advice and a hot meal. 

Such a great read. Should be required for high school or college. 

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dark emotional informative sad

I can see why it won a Pulitzer. Remarkable imagery, authentic voice, themes mostly came around to neat closure. 
Unfortunately, there were excessive graphic descriptions of drug use and sex. Every imaginable locker room crude sexual innuendo. It’s too bad the very good descriptive capabilities of the author was applied to trash you don’t want in your mind as well as nature and life.

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dark emotional sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I was born and raised in West Virginia. Judging by the way it's written, Demon is only a few years older than me. You can tell Kingsolver is Appalachian herself because this is a haunting account of poverty in this area. The depiction of the prevalence of substances and the ease to get it in the early 00s is so vividly real I wonder if the author had family fall victim to it like mine did. My grandmother was one of the first victims of opioid abuse and it distorted the way my childhood should have been. 

This is not a book for the faint heart. I had to stop several times as passages brought my own traumas back up. But this is a masterwork in not only literature but life in some of the poorest parts of the United States.

Oh and she name dropped Purdue. That gets an extra star alone.

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emotional sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

An achingly sad but beautifully written novel that touches on the effects of generational trauma, substance use disorders, domestic violence, poverty, and grief. Kingsolver handles difficult and often incredibly stigmatized issues with honesty and respect. Her characters are multi dimensional and handled with care. As someone with almost a decade in recovery from an opiate use disorder, this book brought me back to the fear and bodily sensations that so often accompany active addiction in a way that no other book has. Realistic and devastating but without being trauma or inspiration porn. 

It was a book that I was sad to finish and maybe for that reason I do wish she had spent more time covering the pain of early recovery and realizing all of what you had been numbing, but this book is such a masterpiece as it is that maybe adding anything else would have only lessened the work. 

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dark emotional sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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dark emotional medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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