Swamplandia! in Around the World in 80 Books

Jul 20, 2015 Nadine in NY Jones marked it as did-not-finish

Shelves: fiction, literary-schmiterary, wouldnt-normally-read, lotsa-buzz, ohno-its-magical-realism, coming-of-age

From the list 21 Books From the Last 5 Years that Every Woman Should Read http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05...

Just started listening to this audiobook, and the narrator, Arielle Sitrick, sounds like a kid! I don't know if I can take this. Some voices work, some don't ...

I got 5% into this book (I realize that's only 15 pages, and I normally give a book MUCH more of a chance than that - that's how miserable I was with this one!) and it hadn't hooked me yet, it just sounded like one long onsla ...more

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Dec 23, 2011 Erica rated it really liked it

Russell's prose is amazing. Her gift for simile and metaphor is among the very best I've ever read--certainly in contemporary fiction, maybe ever. She uses them frequently and with great effect--I found myself looking forward to her near-continuous bon mots of metaphors, even more than I did the plot. And the plot is fun, the characterization lovely, the swamps of Florida truly haunted.

*spoiler alert for rest of review*

The reason I gave this four instead of five stars is the sadly predictable wa ...more

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Oct 29, 2011 Katie rated it liked it

Shelves: female-author, _us-south

Swamplandia! is the story of a family who owns an alligator based theme park on a southern Florida island. After the mom dies, the theme park begins to lose business and each member of the family enters some sort of crisis mode. The father runs off to the mainland on “business,” the older sister runs off to elope with a ghost, the brother runs off to work for a rival amusement park that is some strange depiction of hell. Meanwhile, the younger sister and narrator of the book tries to bring her f ...more

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Oct 15, 2012 Astrid Lim rated it liked it

Shelves: america, tragedy, animals, dysfunctional-family, dramatic, borrowed

I had a mixed feeling of this book.. The heroine is pretty lovable, but I couldn't connect much with her. The setting of the story is really interesting, a crocodile theme park in an isolated island in Florida. The plot, uhmmm... it's promising, but bad execution. It's part mystery, part adventure, part symbolic, part family drama, part coming of age story...too many parts! I just wish this book has more meaning. I feel like I was asked to guess too much. ...more

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Nov 14, 2016 Jana rated it it was ok

Shelves: audiobooks

We started listening to this book on the long drive south. Strange book.

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Apr 16, 2014 Rosemary rated it it was amazing

This book surprised me in many ways. One of the best depictions of how surreal the world feels to a young teen, and how suddenly and strangely reality can come crashing down around you.

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