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May 26, 2011

karen rated it:

this was recommended to me in the RA group when i was whining about wanting more books like winter's bone and dogs of god and gritty appalachia stuff like that.

this is not as dark as either of those books, the stakes of survival are lower, but it is still a book i would recommend. as a readalike, it seems closer to Garden Spells, which i have not read, but have been assured is a contemporary magical realism masterpiece. there are definitely things that happen to characters in this nov More...

10 comments like (30 people liked it)

Feb 10, 2011

Janelle rated it:

I can only think to classify this as a story-tellin' fictional read. There isn't a whole lot of dialogue but there is a whole lot of storytelling from six different perspectives. You can't call it a novel, you can't call it fantasy, certainly not chick-lit or magical. It's downright good story tellin'!

It's a telling of people involved in the life of Myra Mayes-Odum. A wild and spirited mountain girl of the Appalachia region. We read about Myra from the perspective of a child hood fri More...

0 comments like (12 people liked it)

Jan 14, 2011

Laura rated it:

Bloodroot envelops us in several generations of the Lamb family, living on remote Bloodroot Mountain in Appalachia. There are witches and spells; tragedies and redemption; love and hate in this often heart-wrenching saga, which spans the decades from the Great Depression to today. Throughout, fierce mother love is an abiding theme, which brings joy, devotion, and deep pain in equal measure.

The stories unfold as told by each character, each voice unerringly reflecting the unique hi More...

3 comments like (8 people liked it)

Mar 27, 2011

Melissa rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

4 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 04, 2010

Djrmel rated it:

This book brought an interesting question to my mind: Do you blame bland story telling on the writer or the character when the book is told in first person? Okay, so I only entertained the question as a way of explaining how the first part of this three sectioned book could be so engaging, so vivid, and the rest of the book almost mind numbing, even with a plot straight out of my favorite genre, Southern Gothic. Yes, it is the author's fault if four of her six characters almost ruin a great tal More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Nov 14, 2011

Jeanette rated it:

Very nearly five stars. This is a slightly less gritty variation on the traditional Southern novel. It follows four generations of women in a Tennessee family. They are supposedly cursed because one of them was born with "haint blue" eyes, but the real curse is poverty and ignorance. Limited opportunities for girls in the rural South made them throw away their lives on the first boy who paid them any attention. There are Southern traditions and superstitions aplenty here, mostly of More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 24, 2011

Tara rated it:

If I could, I think this book would be more like 3 1/2 stars. I was sucked into to the story of Byrdie, Myra, Laura, Doug, and Johnny, as well as the mystery of what happened to John. There were parts that I felt were a bit slower and I had to hold myself from rushing through. Overall, a very good story though.
It was told in such an interesting way. In some ways I really liked the style, but in others I found it allowed for holes in the story. I found myself going back and rereading s More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 05, 2010

Sara added it

Amy Greene s marvelous debut novel is a whirlwind history of poverty, loss, and redemption in the brutally poor backwoods of rural Appalachia. The Lamb family is at the heart of the book; a family filled with proud but downtrodden women who have a unique relationship with Bloodroot Mountain, the place they call home. One of these women is Myra Lamb, orphaned as a young child and raised by her grandparents in a cabin on the desolate mountain. She is a restless and adventurous young woman whose d More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 21, 2011

Mary rated it:

I've just finished listening to the audio version of Bloodroot; while the Appalachian accents were good, they sure weren't the Tennessee ones I've heard.
Still, Amy Greene's lovely story of several generations of the Lamb family's deep love of their mountain home and their close association with Nature-with-a-capital-N rang true to my recollections of my mother's people in eastern Ohio.
Myra Lamb grows up as wild as the blue-eyed paint mare named Wild Rose by her neighbors. The neigh More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 15, 2011

Rebecca rated it:

Amazing read. This book has a wonderful misty quality about it as it meanders through time and mountain laurel. Greene uses multiple points of view to tell this sad story of Myra Lamb, a young woman whose haunted life begins, like ours all do, long before she was born. We get to meet Myra through the eyes of the boy-next-door who loved her and her deceased grandmother, a mountain witch in her own right. The story starts after Myra has married to man who we already know is no good for her, then s More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 02, 2011

Kimberly rated it:

3.5 stars: Honestly, I'm not really sure what to say. Overall, it was a good read. Great even - with one caveat. It's depressing.

The novel is set in the Appalachian mountains and tells the story of Myra Odom. It threw me at first because there are no chapters. The book is divided into three parts and an epilogue. The first part switches back and forth between Myra's grandmother, Birdie, and a childhood friend, Doug. The second is voiced by her twins, Johnny & Laura. The third belongs t More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

May 09, 2011

Sarah rated it:

Wow. After the slightly mixed reviews from Goodreads and the kind of cheesy, vague (and somewhat misleading, I think) description on the front flap, I was expecting this to be a decent, folksy read. But I just finished it and I can't stop thinking about it.

There's something haunting about the book. My heart just broke for all the characters. The writing was breathtakingly beautiful and the author even managed to weave in the accents and local ways of speaking without sounding contriv More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Apr 12, 2011

Amygrace rated it:

This is a wonderfully weaved story of generations. However it is depressing at times - whether you believe it be by curse, by God’s plan or just life. I felt a feeling of despair while reading it. I ended up staying up late just to finish so I could get to the end and leave the characters behind. There are still with me however and will remain. Don’t take that this was not a good book. Just the opposite. It was an incredibly well written book. It put me there on Bloodroot Mountain. For the More...

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Mar 12, 2011

Greg rated it:

Don't be surprised if you see Amy Greene's Bloodroot make its way onto several of the literary prize short lists later this year. It's that good; a wonderfully engrossing story by a debut novelist who writes with amazing clarity, emotion, authenticity and beauty.

Bloodroot is a plant that has the power both to cure or kill; it's the central symbol throughout a novel rich with dichotomy (love and hate, life and death). Bloodroot is also the name of the mountain in dirt-poor East Tennesse More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Mar 02, 2011

Heather rated it:

Bloodroot is spellbinding. I loved it. The different narrators didn't bother me; in fact, I enjoyed reading the various viewpoints. That's saying something, because sometimes that sort of thing does bother me. I thought it was really interesting how the character of Myra, who seems so compelling and magnetic (almost magical) when described by the other characters, seems so ordinary when we read her section. I recall one character saying “She’s made out of flesh and blood, just like anybody else More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 15, 2011

Donna rated it:

Sorry I have to disagree with most of the reviews I read on this book. I just didn't hit the mark for me. I didn't understand any concept of family curses or magical notations at all in this book. I found I was interested in reading this book based on that. That said, it was nothing like that at all and I was disappointed. Tho it was a good story concept and well written I think readers would like reading it if it had been presented as just a story of a lot of superstitious dysfunctional peo More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 24, 2011

planetkimi rated it:

Bloodroot is a dark, dark story about a family perhaps cursed by supernatural means, but definitely cursed by psychological damage that replicates through generations.

The novel is composed of different sections of first-person narration that reveal the characters' backgrounds and the relationship they had with the heart of the story, Myra Lamb. Her family believes that she will break a curse, but instead Myra makes a critical choice that sets off a new round of misery. Its unclear More...

0 comments like

Jan 22, 2011

Sharon rated it:

This story will stay with me forever because Amy Greene has made her characters so vivid and real that they are inforgettable. The rural setting in her native Appalachian mountains is so far away from the world that most of us are familiar with that the story she tells is riveting, albeit heart-wrenching. Something I read that Amy said in an interview was, "Living in Appalachia feels like being quarantined from mass culture in a way." That is exactly how I felt while reading her boo More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 21, 2011

Shannon rated it:

Bloodroot is a penetrating look at the often hard, yet enduring life in the Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee for multiple generations of the same family. Starting with great-grandmother Byrdie around the time of the Great Depression and cycling forward to present day, the author does a good job of developing characters who you can relate to in one way or another. Their relationships with each other and with Bloodroot Mountain, the home they either cling to or long to escape from, are the More...

0 comments like

Jan 14, 2011

Sheela rated it:

I read about this book from Amazon's top fiction list and chose to read it because it had a "Bastard out of Caroline" feel to it (I loved that book). I would give this book 3.5 stars in truth.

The story is of a family from a very rural part of Tennessee. Family history is passed from generation to generation with story and folklore and you uncover their story from some unique voices and perspectives as the book is in 4 sections told by different narrators and brought togethe More...

0 comments like

Jan 09, 2011

Susan rated it:

I chose this as my pick for my book club, but all-in-all I was disappointed in it. I love books about the people up in the hills of Appalachia, who, despite their hard lives, survive with determination and strong will, keeping the folklore, music, mysticism, connection with the land, personal freedom and home remedies alive. In my estimation, too little time in this book was spent with the older generation up on the mountain, but followed the younger people down to the town where their lives w More...

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Nov 21, 2010

Marya rated it:

Bloodroot follows three generations of Appalachian women over the course of the 20th century, all of whom call Bloodroot Mountain their home. In the beginning of the century, these "witch women" have an almost fable-like quality to them. As time progresses, they lose this power, largely to men who literally keep them down (and locked under the house on one memorable occasion). What's unusual here is the women themselves don't seem to change; they all act the same way and make the sa More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 24, 2010

Jbsfaculty rated it:

Great story of generations of one family in Appalachia. Heartwrenching. This synopsis is accurate:

Named for a flower whose blood-red sap possesses the power both to heal and poison, Bloodroot is a stunning fiction debut about the legacies—of magic and madness, faith and secrets, passion and loss—that haunt one family across the generations, from the Great Depression to today.

The novel is told in a kaleidoscope of seamlessly woven voices and centers around an incendiary More...

0 comments like

Sep 17, 2010

Abish rated it:

This was an impulse read that wasn't on my "to read" list. I decided to read it because it seemed pretty popular for a debut novel and sounded interesting. I liked the book but I'm still deciding what I think about it. It's not a very upbeat story.

The story follows the lives of people who are connected to the main character Myra Lamb. It starts out following her grandmother as you find out that the family has been cursed by a jealous cousin and is followed by tragedy. Myra' More...

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May 27, 2010

Natalie rated it:

There are parts of this book that are amazing. Greene's talent and ability are undeniable. There are some lines that are just stunning. I don't have a problem with the sequence or the multiple voices as other reviews do, and agree that this book is similar in structure (and sometimes voice) to those by Lee Smith. I was particularly reminded of Oral History.

My problems are two fold. First, while I like how certain "minor" story lines from individual sections came back a More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

May 09, 2010

Billpilgrim rated it:

Story of a family in Appalachia, as told by a few different characters. The main actor is Myra Lamb, who grows up on Bloodroot Mountain but leaves when she falls in love with and marries John Odom when she is still a teenager. They have a supernatural attraction, something that comes from Myra's family. Part One starts with the story as told by Birdie and Doug. Birdie is Myra's grandmother, but she raised Myra after her daughter, Myra's mother, dies with her father when their car is hit by a tra More...

0 comments like

Mar 22, 2010

Carol rated it:

Amazon Best Books of the Month, January 2010: Bloodroot is that rare sort of family saga that feels intimate instead of epic. Set in Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains, it’s told largely in tandem voices that keep watchful eyes on Myra Lamb. She is a child of the mountain, tied to the land in ways that mystify and enchant those around her. There’s magic to Myra--perhaps because she has the remarkable blue eyes foretold by a nearly-forgotten family curse--but little fantasy to her life. Bloodroot is as More...

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Mar 19, 2010

Judy rated it:

This debut novel reminded me of the early novels by Lee Smith. Bloodroot is a multi-generational book told in multiple first person accounts. While I initially had some trouble keeping all of the characters straight, it was interesting to see the same events told from different points of view. In this story of four poor, but strong, women in the Lamb family--Birdie, Clio, Myra, and Laura (along with a cast of other characters, many of them major characters)the story stretches from the Great D More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 07, 2010

Nikki rated it:

I wish it was possible to give fractions of stars.

There were things I liked about this book. At times, Amy Greene offered up a pretty turn of phrase; the dialogue is familiar to me, as a) I live in North Carolina and b) I have family in Tennessee, very close to where the story is set. I liked the descriptions of Bloodroot Mountain--in my mind, I pictured the mountains near where my dad grew up in northeast Tennessee--wild and dappled with sunlight and beautiful.

That said, More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 08, 2010

Amy rated it:

“It doesn’t take as much to poison a horse as people think.”

“I might have won her respect. Or maybe she smells my acceptance of the truth that she’s tried to tell me all along. Some creatures are just meant to be left alone. They can’t be held on to, even if we love them more than anything.”

It is sentences like these that reach out and grab you , pulling you into this book, a stunning new novel by Amy Greene. The book is an epic story of several generations li More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)