What readers think of Demon Copperhead, plus links to write your own review.

I want Marne, Molly and Liz to know that they are definitely not alone. I second everything that they have written above. I just read Demon Copperhead as part of a book club read. Everyone else in the group loved it, while I not only didn't want to finish it, I wanted to get it out of my house. I've read many books that tell the stories of people that have experienced extreme trauma and difficult lives - holocaust experiences, experiences of war times and dislocation, oppression, slavery, extreme racism, poverty and gender injustice, caste systems, etc. I do value being aware of, witnessing and sharing people's experiences of hardship. But from the beginning, this narration, and this narrator, felt false. The narrator's voice is certainly not that of a 10 year old boy - it is more like a 30 year old sex- and excrement- addicted child pornographer. The rest of the characters seemed paper thin, one dimensional stereotypes. I grew up in a poor working class family with troubled, traumatized parents myself - but that's never the whole story or the only story. I am sensitive to any group of poor people being portrayed in such a one sided, completely negative way. I felt that Kingsolver was out to maximize horror, and purposely excluded the many deep threads of nourishment and support that the Appalachian people ( and other poor people) have - like their love of their land, their mountains, their unique culture and faith, their community of people, their food, their art forms. Also, the book seemed to be a plea for help - implying that the people of the Appalachian region have been completely abandoned and forgotten. This idea that no one cares, is belied by the huge attention, caring and tens of billions of dollars that have been invested throughout Appalachia over the last 50 years; targeted to effect significant improvement in healthcare, social services, educational attainment, housing, employment, water quality, transportation and communication infrastructure, etc. Is the author trying to give the impression this has all been for naught? I'm glad for anyone who feels seen and acknowledged through the telling of this story. Possibly that's the audience that the author wanted to reach out to - and that is valuable. But for me, it seemed to be going to false extremes in an attempt to argue me out of beliefs and prejudices that I never held to begin with.