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What Members Thought

This book was exhausting.
Damon Fields is born to an addicted mother in Appalachia, and this book takes us on his first-person narrated journey from age 11 to young adulthood. In excruciating detail. There's a lot to admire about this child who is extraordinarily resilient in the face of unrelenting trauma. But other than a protagonist we can root for and some beautiful turns of phrase, especially when it comes to describing nature, this book didn't do anything for me at all. The middle section ...more
Damon Fields is born to an addicted mother in Appalachia, and this book takes us on his first-person narrated journey from age 11 to young adulthood. In excruciating detail. There's a lot to admire about this child who is extraordinarily resilient in the face of unrelenting trauma. But other than a protagonist we can root for and some beautiful turns of phrase, especially when it comes to describing nature, this book didn't do anything for me at all. The middle section ...more

Sep 28, 2024
Book Concierge
rated it
it was amazing
Shelves:
orphans,
concierge,
strong-women,
library,
social-commentary,
retelling,
audio,
literary-fiction,
pulitzer,
virginia
Book on CD performed by Charlie Thurston.
Kingsolver’s Pulitzer-prize winning novel is a re-telling of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield set in Appalachia. Like the original, the book explores the effects of poverty, especially on children.
Damon Fields, known as Demon Copperhead, is the son of an unwed teen mother and a deceased teen father. While his mother struggles with self-doubt, poor decision making, lack of education and drug and alcohol addiction, Demon is left to basically raise h ...more
Kingsolver’s Pulitzer-prize winning novel is a re-telling of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield set in Appalachia. Like the original, the book explores the effects of poverty, especially on children.
Damon Fields, known as Demon Copperhead, is the son of an unwed teen mother and a deceased teen father. While his mother struggles with self-doubt, poor decision making, lack of education and drug and alcohol addiction, Demon is left to basically raise h ...more

This eponymous novel is a retelling of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield; however, the protagonist in this novel is an orphan from the southern Appalachian mountains born from a teenage addicted mother. Demon was born in her mother's rental trailer home while his mother was in a drug-induced stupor. He was still in his caul trying to punch his way out. This birth event serves as a foreshadowing of his life thereafter.
I'm always a bit leery of coming-of-age stories narrated by the protagonist f ...more
I'm always a bit leery of coming-of-age stories narrated by the protagonist f ...more

This is a masterpiece, and it definitely deserves a place on the "Great American Novel" shortlist. Superbly written, deep and meaningful characters, Appalachia comes alive around you as you follow Demon Copperhead from childhood to adulthood, from sober to addicted to recovered, from loser to star and back again and then some, through multiple love affairs, grief, loss and mourning.
As some cynical reviewers had alluded to, it is somewhat on the PG side of things - but that makes it a superb summ ...more
As some cynical reviewers had alluded to, it is somewhat on the PG side of things - but that makes it a superb summ ...more

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In the “Acknowledgments” at the end of the book, Kingsolver states her purpose for writing the book: “For the kids who wake up hungry in those dark places every day, who’ve lost their families to poverty and pain pills, whose caseworkers keep losing their files, who feel invisible, or wish they were: this book is for you.”

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