I have read quite a few books recently. Not that you would necessarily know it by reading this blog as I haven’t posted many reviews. However, my children are off school on their Easter holidays at the moment and both are doing some painting – one is painting rocks and one is painting a tea set, so I am taking advantage of them being busy to get on with writing the reviews of the books I have read in the last few weeks.

Starting with this fantastic book from Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead:

Demon’s story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking ‘like a little blue prize-fighter’. For the life ahead of him he will need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.

In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty and addiction aren’t ideas. They are as natural as the grass grows. For Demon, born on the wrong side of luck, the affection and safety he craves are as remote as the ocean he dreams of seeing one day. The wonder is in how far he’s willing to travel to trey and get there.

Suffused with truth, anger and compassion, Demon Copperhead is an epic tale of love, loss and everything in between.

Blurb from the back of the book Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

I have never read anything by Barbara Kingsolver before. I had heard a lot about this book before reading it. Lots of people all over my social media were saying how much they enjoyed this book, and so I asked my family to get it for me for Christmas.

I say a lot of people had enjoyed this book, but it’s that weird sort of enjoyment where you enjoy the writing and the way it evokes the characters lives for you rather than “enjoying” the story itself – like a film like Schindler’s List. This is a heart-breaking story, where pretty much everything that could go wrong for Demon does.

Demon Copperhead is a modern day retelling of the Charles Dickens novel David Copperfield. There is a bit of a clue in the name there. And the story in the book follows a similar timeline to the storyline in the first tale. Where Dickens’ novel is set in Victorian London around the time of the Industrial Revolution with its associated poverty and workhouses, Demon Copperhead is set in Lee County, in the Appalachian Mountains, where the gap between the richest and poorest is as wide as it was in the earlier novel. Add in commentary about the opioid epidemic and you have the basic elements of Demon Copperhead. As an aside, if you haven’t seen the fantastic drama Dopesick, which is set in a similar mining community and also deals with the start of, and effects of the opioid epidemic, then do so.

Again similar to David Copperfield, Demon Copperhead takes you through Demon’s life from infancy to young adulthood, through the different relationships – familial, platonic and romantic – that get him through his days. I won’t tell you any more about the plot as I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, and I really do believe this is a novel that should be read by as many people as possible. Despite the difficult and heart breaking subject matter.

Demon Copperhead is a very long book at 546 pages long. I will admit that it took me a while to read. Especially as i was reading it in paper back format, so only reading it when I had a chance during the day (I did read a couple of books at night on my kindle while reading this book), but every time I picked it up I enjoyed reading it.

I would absolutely recommend this book. It is a book that will stay with me for a long time, and has inspired me to look out for more of Barbara Kingsolver’s work in the future. I would give the book 4 out of 5 stars, dropping one star because it wasn’t a book that I just couldn’t put down. So 4 stars it is.