Review: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

The good

• Fun, three-dimensional characters.

• Beautiful writing.

• A deep look at the opioid epidemic. I enjoyed the show Dopesick, which looked at the opioid epidemic at a high level; this book gives you a much more close up and personal look at the victims of addiction.

• A good look at a number of other contemporary topics: Appalachia and the way that part of the country is treated in the US; agricultural parts of the country vs urban areas; orphans, fosters, child abuse, and the Department of Social Services (DSS); race in the US; poverty in the US.

The not so good

• At times, this story felt like a grab bag of “what other horrible things can we throw into the story.” It starts off with a boy living with his single, drug addict mother in a trailer park—and only goes downhill from there.

• The narration is beautiful, and the characters are deep, but the dialog between characters and how they relate to each other is not nearly as interesting as the rest of the story. So there are parts that are moving or depressing or funny, but most of those felt to me like they were in the author’s voice, rather than that of the characters, which made them one notch less powerful.

Quotes

“The wonder is that you could start life with nothing, end with nothing, and lose so much in between.”

“I think most of humankind would agree, the hard part of high school is the people.”

“We both lay back down, and she looked at me in the eyes, and we were sad together for a while. I’ll never forget how that felt. Like not being hungry.”

Rating: 4 stars