Set in an Adirondacks summer camp in 1975, this story centers around the disappearance of one of the teenage campers, and then spirals outwards like aSet in an Adirondacks summer camp in 1975, this story centers around the disappearance of one of the teenage campers, and then spirals outwards like a coil whisk, cycling through the perspectives of seven characters, wandering away from the teen's disappearance to another one that happened years earlier, and eventually spiraling back in to address the disappearance with which the novel starts.
Personally, I gravitate away from literary fiction, clever wording, multiple POVs, and nonlinear timelines. This novel is all of those things. Still, it is the rare case of a slow, unfocused, multi-POV start that actually paid off. I enjoyed it much more than the first 150 pages had indicated I would.
Mind you, when I say "paid off", I'm not talking about the mystery element. I'm just saying that it became an engaging read that benefitted from its meandering start. I wouldn't say that the disappearance story had an interesting or satisfying resolution. If anything, the disappearance of the teenage camper's brother, a decade and a half before the novel starts, had a more interesting ending. At least, to me.
And now, a spoiler-filled summary I typed up for a goodreads friend, because I want proof that I actually read this, for when I forget about ever having done so, seeing as I am wont to completely lose my book memories every decade or so.
(view spoiler)[ --------------------------- MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD --------------------------- Barbara is the punk teenage daughter of the old-monied Van Laar family, who own the camp where the novel takes place (and their mansion is just up the hill). Barbara feels like a half-wanted replacement for her brother Bear, who went missing in the woods around the camp before she was born. She has been misbehaving recently, including being caught with a boyfriend in her boarding school room. Out of the blue, she's asked to be sent to the camp at the last minute.
There, she befriends a shy girl named Tracy. Tracy learns that Barbara leaves their cabin every night to meet her boyfriend, and returns by dawn every morning - except for the morning when the novel starts.
The case of Barbara's disappearance is attributed to a murder and compared to her brother's case, which was unconvincingly "solved" as murder by one of the family's kind-natured employees, who died of a heart attack after learning that he was a murder suspect in Bear's disappearance.
Anyhoo, Barbara's camp counselor Louise is detained by the investigation into Barbara's disappearance, since she was the adult in charge of keeping track of her. Oh by the way, do you want to know how Louise got the counselor job?
I'm going to tell you whether or not you want to know. Louise's beau, Jean Paul, is the son of the Van Laar family's Tom Hagen-like lawyer. The guy is rich and beats her up and doesn't deserve Louise in other ways too. She's met his parents multiple times but they never seem to remember her.
Anyway, when she gets detained, someone has planted a bag of cocaine in a trash bag that she kind of did and didn't throw away at the beginning of the novel. Someone (who? the answer comes at the very end and is pretty unsatisfying) posts bail for Louise, and she walks up the hill to ask Tom Hagen to be her lawyer for free. Unsurprisingly, considering their history, Jean Paul's dad wishes her good luck and walks away. He probably planted the drugs in Louise's bag, but I wasn't very convinced by how and why.
Jean Paul becomes a murder suspect after the police pull him over, search his car, and find Barbara's bloodied camp uniform in the trunk. The dude cries in the back seat of the cop car. (Turns out he's not it)
Suspicion also falls on a camp kitchen worker, because we know Barbara went to see a boyfriend and he's done time for statutory stuff with a minor (turns out he was 19 and his girlfriend was 16, and he didn't kill Barbara either)
Suspicion falls on a convicted murderer who escaped from a neighboring prison a little while ago, and we get to see how he's been surviving in the Adirondacks.
We get a chapter about a wilderness survival trip, which reminded me of the Hunger Games, only the kids don't murder each other. Barbara accidentally cuts her thigh, and this produces the bloodied uniform someone has planted in Jean Paul's car.
A little eight year old boy shyly confesses to the police that he witnessed Barbara on the trip get up in the middle of the night and walk into the tent of TJ, the director of the camp. Suddenly, suspicion falls on TJ and we wonder if this is the mysterious "boyfriend". Who probably murdered Barbara. Because it looks like maybe TJ has murdered her own dad too.
Yes and no. Yes, Barbara has been going to TJ's tent every night she's been at camp. No, TJ is not doing anything criminal, just teaching Barbara survival skills. And Barbara hasn't been murdered, she ran away to stay at TJ's family lake cabin by herself until she reaches 18 - hence the need for wilderness skills. She just wants to be away from her parents.
Meanwhile, we learn about the circumstances of the disappearance of Barbara's brother, Bear. The escaped murder convict from earlier gets captured by the police, and he shows them where the boy's bones are buried. Yes, Bear died, and those were his bones. No, Bear wasn't murdered. His mom, Alice, took him out in a rowboat while high on pills in the middle of a storm. The mom survived. Bear didn't. The Van Laar family pretended that they didn't know how it happened, and the police never even imagined that this was the cause of death. (hide spoiler)]...more
Somewhere in the ether exists a yellow-greenish, decade-old photo of me happily showing off an autographed copy of Birds of America. Somehow the copy Somewhere in the ether exists a yellow-greenish, decade-old photo of me happily showing off an autographed copy of Birds of America. Somehow the copy of Autobiography of Red that Anne Carson signed to my alter ego is the one I no longer own. Life is full of inexplicable twists....more
Scott Alexander Howard, your debut made me cry over my dinner plate. I hope you’re proud. Making a reader cry is every author’s dream. Now please stopScott Alexander Howard, your debut made me cry over my dinner plate. I hope you’re proud. Making a reader cry is every author’s dream. Now please stop reading my review because you don’t want to know the reason for my tears.
*waits for the author to leave*
Those of you who are still reading will notice that I’m not giving The Other Valley a star rating. This is because my feelings on the book are a quantum superposition of two ratings that lie on the opposite sides of 3 stars.
First there’s the rating I want to give it for the beautiful interactions between the main character and Edme, the boy who plans to audition for the conservatory against his parents� wishes. This teenager loves his violin more than anything. He can hear three ugly notes and improvise around them until he has composed a violin concerto for the ages. This is also the teenager that gets drunk on his friend’s wine and describes it as “piss. Many discordant notes.� Some of the Edme scenes made me feel wonderful things.
Then there’s the rating I want to give the book’s pace. It was so slow that at certain points I was tearing my hair out as I waited to see what the narration was leading to.
Part of my problem is my very low tolerance for superfluous descriptions. I know many readers enjoy seeing a clever description of a person stirring porridge with a wooden spoon. I, unfortunately, just get annoyed because I come to fiction for the stories. If I wanted to visualize reality, I would just use my eyes instead of reading about it. The Other Valley will be more enjoyable for those readers who enjoy poetry and beautiful writing and other literary things like that.
A much bigger part of my problem was that I really, really, really wanted to like this book. Speculative coming of age novels that aren’t written for a YA audience don’t exactly come out every other hour. And hopes and expectations are never good baggage to bring into a new book.
How dare you do this to me, Scott Alexander Howard....more
This started off so promisingly, with a suspenseful plot and language that brought the book to life in my mind. But now, I haven't felt compelled to pThis started off so promisingly, with a suspenseful plot and language that brought the book to life in my mind. But now, I haven't felt compelled to pick the book up in days. I think the stakes kind of... did an Irish exit somewhere a quarter of the way through? Things are still happening in the novel, but at the present moment, they're not enough to stay under my "currently reading", which I need to KonMari for the sake of sanity.
Thus, Hard By A Great Forest is getting a soft switch to the DNF shelf. Not the easiest DNF I've ever done, but sometimes we get overwhelmed and need to do something about it. Would like to finish at a later date....more
Two sisters live on a small island and work service jobs as they take care of their sick mother, their costly family house, and each other. One morninTwo sisters live on a small island and work service jobs as they take care of their sick mother, their costly family house, and each other. One morning, a bear takes an interest in their house.
I'm honestly stumped on how to summarize Bear's setup and appeal beyond that because it's unclear to me what counts as a spoiler for this book.
This is slow-building literary fiction that some readers would be really into. If you enjoy meditation, you could be one of them. I personally would rather do my taxes than meditate - I need progress and palpable change in an activity in order to enjoy it. Bear didn't fulfill that need for me.
This is an interesting case where a novel centers on the relationship between two characters, both of whom are well-developed, and yet for some reason I didn't feel a connection to them. In that respect, Bear reminded me of Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, which I reviewed a few months ago here.
By the 50% mark, I was feeling more and more reluctant to pick up Bear.I was still waiting to feel connected to the sisters. I ended up skimming through the last half of the novel. Events do start happening towards the end of Bear. But don't pick this novel up for the sake of plot twists. Pick it up if you want to read a slowly unfolding relationship between two sisters that delves into their inner world.
P.S. word of advice: don't read this during breakfast.
Thank you, Julia Phillips and Penguin Random House/Hogarth for providing me with a free advance reader copy of Bear through Netgalley....more
As a child, I was very lucky to never be exposed to Bambi, which I hear inflicts psychological wounds that kids never outgrow. Instead of that harrowiAs a child, I was very lucky to never be exposed to Bambi, which I hear inflicts psychological wounds that kids never outgrow. Instead of that harrowing tragedy, I had the much more uplifting animated short It was inspired by Baby Mammoth Dima, a 6-month old mammoth whose body was preserved by the Siberian permafrost for tens of thousands of years until it was discovered in 1977.
Baby Mammoth Dima was the perfect recipe for my 7-year-old obsession: the baby mammoth was roughly my size. Dima was my cool uncle's name. The baby mammoth was preserved by snow, and snow was delicious. I went to the chronically empty Paleontological Museum* so much that museum employees knew me there.
So, when I saw Tusks of Extinction's premise, I wanted in. Here's what the book's blurb promises (paraphrased by me):
Future scientific miracles bring mammoths back from extinction. But the mammoths struggle to survive in the wild. To teach the resurrected animals to fend for themselves, the uploaded consciousness of a deceased elephant behavior scientist named Damira is transplanted into the matriarch mammoth. Will she succeed at helping the mammoths survive?
Looking at the blurb, I thought: It's a thriller about survival in Siberia. The premise revolves around bringing extinct animals back into the present. It sounds like Jurassic Park with the wonderful bonus of mammoths and a Siberian setting. My finger couldn't possibly hit the "Request" button faster. I was ready to dive in.
Unfortunately, this was a disappointment. In part, because the novella didn't match the blurb. The word "thriller" is really misleading here. Thrillers have a particular emotional feel, a certain page-turning quality and a sense of danger that is specific and resolvable. Tusks of Extinction doesn't have that vibe.
Instead, this struck me as literary fiction meant to express the author's anger at elephant poaching. A worthy reason to write a novella, absolutely. But the words "thriller" and "survive" don't go with the novella's actual text. The novella focuses solely on the matriarch's hunger for revenge against poachers - not on guiding her herd through the perils of wilderness.
If misleading book jacket copy was the novella's only issue, that would be no fault of the author's. I wouldn't have an issue with giving it a high rating. But the novella's actual text had problems, too.
Nayler's blunted axe approach to the book's central theme didn't sit right with me. Damira the Mammoth is a one-note character that sadly is all too common in today's literary fiction. The first manifestation of Damira's revenge against humans came so abruptly that I went back through the chapter to make sure I didn't miss some transition. Nayler imbues Damira the Mammoth with so much anger that the human consciousness should have been harvested from a serial killer. Wasn't Damira the Human a good-natured scientist who cared about peace-loving elephants and the preservation of life?
Another sign that this is literary fiction lies in the Acknowledgements. There, Nayler talks about his exploration of semiotics in the novella. Semiotics is a branch of philosophy that concerns itself with meaning. I got a B in my literary semiotics class in college, so that aspect of the novel went completely undetected by me. Maybe someone with more interest in philosophy will enjoy it.
This novella held so much potential for me. Its concept is speculative, but not supremely far from today's technology. The consciousness transplant is its most speculative element. have been going on . A is trying to recreate the ecosystem of the last ice age, right around where The Tusks of Extinction is set.
Sigh. Let's move on to the cover. It's really fun to look at.
The Tusks of Extinction manages to make the unicorn palette look haunted, like a combination of a janky hologram and the putrid rainbow of spilled gasoline. Well done.
As for the font, it's a slightly rounded version of a typeface associated with Russian Constructivist posters of the early Soviet period:
This font is out of place on the cover of a book that is set in waaay-post-Soviet Russia. That angular masking-tape look screams "Russian Civil War" (1918-1922) to me. But, I guess, to a Western audience, it just screams "Russia." Or so this font choice seems to imply.
--- * The Paleontological Museum's has a spectacularly understated, slightly creepy, miniseries intro. I hope you are taking notes, Netflix Originals.
Thank you Ray Nayler, Tor, and Spotify Audiobooks for a free audio ARC of The Tusks of Extinction in exchange for my (perhaps overly) honest review....more
Imagine: you're fourteen. Your entire life, you've been trapped in a room. Everything in your life happens on a TV screen. To communicate with the peoImagine: you're fourteen. Your entire life, you've been trapped in a room. Everything in your life happens on a TV screen. To communicate with the people inside the TV, you must head-butt a remote control. It only has one button, which makes the people inside the TV see a blinking light. Oh, and the remote is nailed to the ceiling.
Suppose you want to say something to one of the people inside the TV - your Dad. You want to say "I would like to cast a vote for pizza in tonight's dinner poll. We've had too many burgers lately, and anyway have you ever seen Food, Inc? I'd like mushroom but will take plain cheese too."
You do enough jumping to finally hit the button on your sole communication device. It makes a light blink inside the TV. Your sister, Mia, is the one that notices it. She says to everyone in your family: "Oh look, Eugene is trying to tell us something." The family members gather around the screen, look straight at you and speak:
"What is it, sweetie? Do you want to watch some videos?" Then they put Sesame Street on an iPad and set it in front of the camera, perfectly obstructing you from their lives, like you don't really exist.
That's what Happiness Falls is about. It isn't a mystery about Mia, the narrator, or her father who goes missing on the first page. It's not about a crime or conspiracy. It's about Eugene, Mia's younger brother who is disabled and cannot speak. It's about being trapped in a world where you don't have an interface to communicate with the people around you. The mystery of the missing father is a nice addition that is really a narrative device for telling the story I just described above.
The book starts when Eugene runs home, covered in dirt and blood, by himself. His family treat him like a toddler, so the fact that he came home without his Dad is alarming. When they notice the Dad's absence, the search for what happened is seriously complicated. Why? Because Eugene is the only one that knows what happened. But Eugene is trapped in the metaphorical room with a TV and a remote with only one button. He can't communicate with them.
At the beginning, Happiness Falls was just interesting enough.
But by the end, I was consumed. Once I finished it, I wanted to know so much more....more
It's the fifties, and Elizabeth Zott is a chemist raising her daughter as an unmarried woman. She deals with blatant discrimination at the lab where sIt's the fifties, and Elizabeth Zott is a chemist raising her daughter as an unmarried woman. She deals with blatant discrimination at the lab where she works, as well sexual assault (graphically depicted in the text).
Elizabeth Zott sees everything in life through a very intense chemistry lens, constructs a research lab in her home, makes god-level coffee in beakers, builds her own rowing machine, and is shocked anew every time she encounters people who neither use chemistry jargon in everyday conversations, nor require error bars on every word they utter.
Elizabeth Zott then becomes the host of a cooking show on TV. Despite pleas from her producer, she refuses to play the role of a subservient housewife on screen and infuses her show with her trademark superabundant amount of science. Importantly, she also encourages the women watching her show to take time for themselves, attend medical school and serve poisonous mushrooms to their families.
--- First, the good:
The concept of a chemistry wiz running her own cooking show is awesome. The scene where she casually gives advice on serving poisonous mushrooms to the family was gold. It happens about 3/4 of the way through the book.
--- Now, the drawbacks:
Elizabeth Zott felt like a clueless time traveler from the twenty-first century, who has never opened a newspaper and knows zilch about societal norms in mid-century America. Somehow, despite her intelligence, she is shocked and confused every time coworkers mistreat her. There seems to be little to no evolution in her character.
The novel depicts nearly every person, with the exception of the protagonist (and, to a smaller extent, a couple of men), as stupid, passive, and unthinking. Other women only start to leave their 1-dimensional form in the last few pages.
It felt like the author viewed the readers' intellectual capacity as hovering around that of the "stupid" characters in her novel. Every now and then we get an explainer in the vein of "In 1959, abortion wasn't legal" and "In 1959, men really discriminated against female coworkers". [these aren't actual quotes from the book].
This book is marketed as laugh-out-loud funny, the epitome of comedy, but it came off as mainly just dark almost all the way through. But what's funny to one reader may not be funny to another.
--- And to conclude, a rant from a woman in physics:
I've been on the receiving end of the b.s. that contributes to the appallingly low number of women in my field. Lessons in Chemistry attempts to shed light on that b.s. - but without nuance. And, arguably, this lack of subtlety is harmful to the book's cause.
The examples of discrimination and abuse in this novel are the loudest, most how could humans ever be this awful to each other harassment cases that have been publicized in the last decade or so. And while those glaring instances of sexism are important to talk about, in reality, most hostile situations are quiet, small - so much so that when the victim tries reporting it, it's all too easy for the other side to dismiss the complaint. Small hostilities happening throughout a woman's career are like water droplets hitting a stone: they're not perceived as a major problem, and after a few years, they leave an irreparable hole.
Lessons in Chemistry presents sexism as a series of newspaper-level events as opposed to (at times, fairly intricate) jabs that just don't relent. This creates the impression that harassment and discrimination always takes the form of something obvious and egregious, supporting the idea that microaggressions don't count as real hostility.
To wit, in the interview with the author at the end of the book, Garmus says that the idea for this book hit her after her male coworker did something hostile towards her. She then got a vision of Elizabeth Zott saying "You think you've had a bad day? Well, get a load of this." And out came this novel. This mindset - harassment doesn't count if worse harassment has happened in the past - can be really harmful.
Finally, the message hidden in the protagonist's arc appears to be that you're not a real chemist if you use science to create an amazing society-altering cooking show on your own terms - a show that is entertaining and inspiring (and interesting to read about). You're only a real chemist if you're doing research in a lab - even if it's a hostile environment. This message is literally spelled out in a dialogue between the protagonist and her precocious toddler.
If it was really necessary to have Elizabeth Zott want to return to the lab and abandon the most interesting thing about this novel, it would have been better to frame it as "this show is an amazing idea, but my soul yearns to be back in a lab." Instead, it felt more like "I'm not a real chemist until I'm back in a lab."
Personal anecdote time. A woman who has worked in physics for decades once pulled together a group of undergraduate women to give us an unsolicited lecture on how much worse physics was for women in the past. She then told us that we need to learn to ignore harassment if we want to stay in the field - because that's what she did to survive. I wish Lessons in Chemistry didn't remind me of that lecture, but unfortunately, it does....more
Wondering if this book is for you? Here's a preview of the voice of Marcellus, the sentient octopus. Look up "" Wondering if this book is for you? Here's a preview of the voice of Marcellus, the sentient octopus. Look up "" on youtube. Now picture a giant octopus in place of the butler. Congrats- you've met Marcellus. [image]
Remarkably Bright Creatures is a story told from the perspective of Tova, a widowed woman in her seventies, Cameron, a thirty-two-year-old that people regularly mistake for a twenty-four-year-old, and Marcellus - the aforementioned octopus. Cameron wants to find his father, Marcellus wants to go back to the ocean, and Tova wants... well, I'm not really sure what she wants. Please enlighten me if you've figured it out.
Each narrator is misunderstood and underestimated by the people in their lives - which is what the title refers to. One might paraphrase the book's title as a tongue-in-cheek "They're surprisingly smart for [insert trope]", although that wording probably wouldn't make it onto an aquarium's info panel about an octopus (or onto the NYT bestsellers list). Which is fine, because it would be a little too sarcastic for the easygoing tone of this novel, anyway.
The story follows Tova's and Cameron's lives when they start as strangers and are brought closer and closer together over time by Marcellus the octopus (at times by circumstance and at other times, by Marcellus's deliberate effort).
Of the three narrators, it felt like Cameron was the real protagonist. Some reviewers have mentioned that they found his immaturity aggravating. That wasn't the case for me. In fact, I enjoyed seeing his growth and could relate to having a capable but scattered mind that hadn't quite found its place in the world yet.
Tova was a secondary protagonist with, in my opinion, a slightly less robust emotional arc. A Scottish expat, who runs the local grocery store, pines after her, and I enjoyed his voice quite a bit. Tova herself wasn't very interesting for me.
Marcellus the Octopus is the only character who gets to tell his story in the first-person. He didn't strike me as a protagonist. Rather, he is an important secondary character with an enjoyable voice. Marcellus has a clear desire and personality, but they don't evolve through the book.
In my personal favorite scene, Cameron's love interest gives him his first-ever paddle-board lesson and ends up in his arms after some splashing around in the water.
Strait-laced Tova buying collectible psychedelic rock tour merch on ebay to apologize for accidentally destroying someone's property (in pursuit of cleaning the kitchen after dinner!) is another great moment.
There is a clear plot that weaves through the novel, but it wasn't so enticing as to keep me up into the wee hours of the morning. That said, it made sense given the characters' personalities and backgrounds. Without it, I likely wouldn't have enjoyed the book nearly as much.
Early on in my reading journey, I noted that this novel reminded me of two movies: Finding Dory and The Shape of Water. In the end, the resemblance to Finding Dory remained, through an opinionated aquarium octopus that likes to escape its tank. The mood of the novel is comparable to a Pixar movie.
Because there is a fairly prominent relationship between an imprisoned marine creature and a custodian whose voice is unheard by other people, The Shape of Water came to mind early in my reading. But this novel has a different focus and a much sunnier vibe than that film.
I also see similarities with the documentary My Octopus Teacher, which is about one man's close relationship with an octopus that lives in the ocean near his house. This novel, however, is much much much much less likely to make you cry than My Octopus Teacher.
Remarkably Bright Creatures is literary fiction which avoids a lot of pitfalls that often make books in the literary genre hard to get through. Its focus is on characters' emotions, which is executed well. Van Pelt's writing is neither exceedingly poetic nor overly dramatic, both of which often spoil literary fiction for me. It's a book I'd pack on a trip if I'm going through a tough time in life.
I mayyybe would add a "magical realism" label to this because the octopus has an anthropomorphic intelligence. Don't go into this expecting literal magic. It's just a slightly tweaked reality.
If you enjoy this book's trio of central characters that start as completely separate stories and intertwine over time until we see that they're all part of a single thread, I suggest reading Emily St. John Mandel's Sea of Tranquility next. It's got a slightly gloomier tone, more prominent speculative elements (time travel) and an even less clear single protagonist than in Remarkably Bright Creatures.
Remarkably Bright Creatures may not be the most suspenseful story I've ever read, but that's not its point. It was enjoyable and has a few things that make it memorable....more
In the near future, smog has engulfed the earth and killed most crops. Food is now synonymous with sawdust that's barely edible. Fresh strawberries? WIn the near future, smog has engulfed the earth and killed most crops. Food is now synonymous with sawdust that's barely edible. Fresh strawberries? What a concept!
The main character loves food. By her delicious luck, a mysterious restaurant in rural Italy is hiring a chef. That tiny patch of Italy is one of the few locations on Earth that still gets some scrumptious sunlight and, thus, has the mouthwatering luxury of seductively fresh produce. Here's what's not as lucky: the main character doesn't actually have the right qualifications for the job. But eh, would a little resume fibbing hurt anyone? No one will find out, probably. And if they do, what's the worst that could happen?
Land of Milk and Honey is literary fiction set in the near future with a speculative element. However, science fiction fans will protest against putting this on the genre shelf, since the speculative element takes a backseat to human relationships in this story - and to lush writing in the way the story is told.
It delves into some timeless topics that are as relevant to us today as they can get. The novel explores codependent relationships and what circumstances could make someone give up their moral principles. It looks at the fetishization of ethnic minorities and the power dynamics that money engenders. Oh how I do hope that these themes will feel less timeless, or should I say neverending, in humanity's future.
The book starts slow, with very little happening. About halfway through, there is a twist that improves the novel, in my experience, as the codependent relationship goes to a new level. Still, the writing relies heavily on descriptions of the protagonist's sensory experiences rather than her thoughts, and that heavy-handed sensory approach dulled my enjoyment of the novel.
Example: the protagonist gets a phone call that presumably shakes her. But instead of describing her thoughts or emotional reaction, the narrator says "I still remember the weight of the phone in my hand."
The only time when the sensory descriptions worked for me was when the narrator described fruit as a metaphor for her romantic relationship.
Speaking of relationships, the central one, although not romantic per se, reminded me of the gilded cage marriage paradigm that I would be expected to pursue were I to stay in Eastern Europe past my adolescence. The description of this relationship is alright, but could definitely benefit from a deeper exploration of the protagonist's thoughts, rather than descriptions of actions and transactions with no deeper commentary.
In the end, I think this novel relies too heavily on being poetic and, as a result, fails to deliver on an emotional level. However, there is value in the messages it aims to send....more
Not since my days as a literature major, when I was rewarded for deifying well-crafted sentences above any other merit, has a novel's writing style beNot since my days as a literature major, when I was rewarded for deifying well-crafted sentences above any other merit, has a novel's writing style been on even footing with its storytelling, as far as keeping me hooked to the words goes.
I couldn't put Demon Copperhead down until the last line. There were funny parts. Demon's musings on his best friend's plethora of cheerleading squad cousins is one example. I went back to enjoy quite a few of Demon's witty ponderings about his environment. But it never felt zany. This wasn't a novel that had me asking which MFA program the author had attended.
There certainly also were hard parts in the story. Many have described them as heartbreaking, but that isn't the right word for my experience of Demon Copperhead. There was one extended scene midway through that made me physically queasy, even though no characters underwent physical harm. Demon's character is so relatable that I felt his anxiety on a level that fiction rarely reaches. Normally, that kind of stomach-churning discomfort would have me put a novel down, at least for a break. Not so with this one. Page-turning, stomach-churning goodness....more
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