A review by fjcookie
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

this book took me an ageeee to read!! it is very dense but I feel like i've just read a whole life story so that is probably why!! the scope of this book is crazy and I really loved it. I found the second half a lot more compelling and interesting than the first half and I read it so much faster. 
this has the vibes of Shuggie Bain, but American. both novels are such interesting looks at vulnerable childhood lives, but the scope of this one feels bigger than Shuggie Bain. (I love both equally)
the narration is such a compelling one, funny and bitter but also heartfelt. so many characters and events built into a bigger narrative, artfully building towards disaster time and time again. there were times when I almost couldn't read because I couldn't deal with Demon being distressed and upset again! I also love the repeated motifs throughout the novel, knitting this massive scope together- particularly, the ocean, water and drowning motifs. Also the Mary Oliver-esque discovery of self in the moss and the woods, ugh, had my heart singing. 
  • p2- 'save or be saved, these are questions. You want to think it's not over till the last page.'
  • p296- 'she liked to tease me that if we lived to a hundred, she would still be the one to get there first. Which was true. No credit given for all the extra miles that take you nowhere.'
  • p329- 'good people, bad people, what does that even mean? Get down to the rock and the hard place, and we're all just soft flesh and the weapon at hand.'
  • p385- 'many had tried to do their best with us, but we came out of too-hungry mothers. Four demons spawned by four different starving hearts.'
  • p409- 'you'll look at this person that's your whole world and offer to go get something, the little hit that so easily brings her back. You do it as an act of love. I've known no greater'
  • p451-'I'd helped Emmy into the tunnel that day, but I also lied to her. If something scares you, you get your ass out of there. I should have said. Everything will not be okay.'
  • p504- 'it comes down to velocity. this was a business of outrunning ghosts, and there was no end to my dead'
  • p506- 'some tiny part of me woke up to the moss and said, Man. Where you been. This is the fucking wonderful world of colour.'
  • p507- 'the light looked drinkable. it poured on a mountain so I saw the curve of every treetop edged in gold
  • p529- 'if it had been July, my heart already would have cracked for the beauty. As it was, I might die of loneliness'
  • p544- 'For a minute the sun came out, while it was snowing. People say that means the devil is beating his wife. Then the snow stopped, which I took to mean she was leaving the bastard.'
  • p546- 'That's where we are. Well past the Christiansburg exit. Past Richmond, and still pointed east. Headed for the one big thing I know is not going to swallow me alive.' 
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