Reviews
The author could have cut out about half of the description of the swamps during Ava's search; it's like filling in a really detailed background when all the audience wants is the portrait of Mona Lisa. Also, the ending left me unfulfilled. It seems like the author just ran out of steam and cut off the story without giving a good explanation for it all, or any sense of how the characters felt about their experiences. Countering these negatives is the main positive: the characters. I really was interested in them, and related in my own ways with each of their personal dramas. Even the times when I was like, "Come on! Get your head out of your ass!" I still understood a little why they could not, in fact, get their heads out of their asses.
I wanted to like this book more. It was so promising at first - about a quirky and struggling family with the alligator park. But then it takes some disturbing turns and it just depressed me. I really liked the characters and the writing, but I think the plot didn't measure up.
Because of its dark nature and erratic humor, this book is not for everyone. But I must say this: Anyone who reads Swamplandia! will realize that no matter what happens in life, and no matter how dark and tragic life may seem, the world keeps turning and the very idea of living will never cease to exist as a whole, as the past lives of others live on within everyone. The burning image of Hilola Bigtree encompasses this entire theme as her memory lives on within each member of the Bigtree family. Russell shows, through Ava and Kiwi especially, the importance of their mother and how her death shapes every event that happens in their lives. Then, there is Ossie's relationship with the ghost of Louis Thanksgiving -- who I think distinctly represents a specific non-corporeal energy of love which drives us to do the unthinkable, or the impossible -- where Russell shows how we, as humans, cannot stop forces of love and power that overcome us. This is because we attach emotions to the people in our lives so that when someone dies, the memory and the life of them lives on within ourselves. Overall, Karen Russell uses so many metaphors in this book, it is quite literally a figurative language overload. I'm assuming she suffered from hyper metaphorical syndrome when she wrote this book, if that even exists. Even on the fifth page, I became completely lost in her use of metaphor that I had to stop and take deep breaths. If you're going to read this book, be prepared for it to not meet your expectations. It starts off cheerful, practically magical, and then slowly makes a downward spiral back to reality. You can kind of relate this book to Alice in Wonderland -- except Alice is falling up into the real world, drifting away from Wonderland.
Sort of a Geek Love lives in the Castle. Only it's the swamp they live in.
this story was really refreshing and interesting, but the ending felt a little rushed and unfinished, and not in the way authors will purposefully leave things open ended (if that makes sense).
I tried to like this...and then I was just trying to finish it. I finally got to the scene with the Bird Man. Now I'm tapping out - I quit.
This book was just weird. I don't think I've ever said that about a book before. The book felt awkward, disjointed and quite uncomfortable. The prose, and the story line, never gelled. It couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a story about a family coping with the loss of a mother, a ghost story or a coming of age story. At times Russell's prose showed flashes of brilliance but only for the briefest moments. The rest of it struggled to find its footing often getting lost in attempted profundities and gratuitous crassness. (I spent as little time as possible reading Kiwi's chapters. I just didn't want to read every version of the f word at least once per page. It simply wasn't necessary.) I would not recommend this book to anyone.
I found this to be a really great, really innovative book. I wasn't really sure what to expect when I started reading it, but in the end I was in love with it. I truly felt for the characters, the good and bad, and when tragic things happened (because, yes, there was a decent amount of tragedy), I had to keep reading to know they were all ok. It's a great read for someone who really wants to indulge in a story and get invested into the book. Takes a while to get through, but it's all worth it.
I liked it but found Kiwi's venture at World of Whatever kind of weird and tone-deaf and limp. The progression of Ava's outing with the Bird Man progressed from vaguely sort of maybe magical realism to outright horror semi-predictably and harrowingly. It was suspenseful and well done. A lot of the details in the book (mostly in the sections in which we're with Kiwi away from the island) felt wrong and kind of sloppy, and if they'd have been handled better, I'd have received the book better. The ending didn't thrill me.
absolutely worth reading even if you don't think a book about alligator wrestlers is for you.
