Swamplandia!

Author: Karen Russell

Pages: 336

Personal Rating: 3/5

From the back cover:

From the celebrated twenty-nine-year-old author of the everywhere-heralded short-story collection St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (“How I wish these were my own words, instead of the breakneck demon writer Karen Russell’s . . . Run for your life. This girl is on fire”—Los Angeles Times Book Review) comes a blazingly original debut novel that takes us back to the swamps of the Florida Everglades, and introduces us to Ava Bigtree, an unforgettable young heroine.

The Bigtree alligator-wrestling dynasty is in decline, and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator-wrestling theme park, formerly #1 in the region, is swiftly being encroached upon by a fearsome and sophisticated competitor called the World of Darkness. Ava’s mother, the park’s indomitable headliner, has just died; her sister, Ossie, has fallen in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, who may or may not be an actual ghost; and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, who dreams of becoming a scholar, has just defected to the World of Darkness in a last-ditch effort to keep their family business from going under. Ava’s father, affectionately known as Chief Bigtree, is AWOL; and that leaves Ava, a resourceful but terrified thirteen, to manage ninety-eight gators and the vast, inscrutable landscape of her own grief.

Against a backdrop of hauntingly fecund plant life animated by ancient lizards and lawless hungers, Karen Russell has written an utterly singular novel about a family’s struggle to stay afloat in a world that is inexorably sinking. An arrestingly beautiful and inventive work from a vibrant new voice in fiction

I'm not exactly sure how I feeling about Swamplandia. Each time I try to put down what I liked or didn't like about this book it keeps getting tangled together.

In general I would say this is a good book and I would recommend it. That being said, I would also say it reads more slowly than it should. This may have been because of my own personal expectations. I expected more of the book to be set in the park and deal with the alligator wrestling itself and it didn't. This didn't make it bad, just different. It's hard to talk about what happens in this story without giving away spoilers so I'll just make a few comment.

The characters were phenomenal. Ava, Osceola and Kiwi are the three children who live at Swamplandia!. Each of them is different from each other, strange and still completely relatable.

Russell's descriptions of the swamp were vivid. I felt like I was in the swamp with Ava. I swear I could feel mosquitoes crawling on me at some points while reading. I could feel mud drying on me and making my skin shrink. She also did a great job at conveying the "obnoxiousness???" you can observe if you head out to any amusement park or large public gathering these days.

Possible, though unlikely SPOILER (i just tell if i like the end, not what happened)--

I felt the ending was too neat and tidy. Improbable. It was too nice. Do people need a "nice" ending to enjoy a book? Can an unhappy ending still make an enjoyable, good read?

If you are undecided I would grab the book and give it a go!

Book Review: Seventh Son--Tales of the Alvin Maker

Author: Orson Scott Card

Pages: 241

Genre: Fiction/Fantasy

Personal Rating: 4/5

Come fall in love with a magical America that might have been…

This is written on the front cover and is what first captured my attention. The Seventh Son is the first book in a series. It is mainly an introduction and probably a “set up” for the books that will be following. The main character is Alvin Jr. He is the seventh son, of a seventh son. This somehow holds extreme importance (for the boy). He is what several people think of as a “Maker”. This is somewhat explained but I’m sure will come into play in later books. He is capable of “seeing” things slightly different and is therefore able to do things/make things just a little better. We are also briefly introduced to something (not a person) called the Unmaker. It seems that Alvin will struggle with the Unmaker for a long time.

Most of the story is spent introducing and developing characters who have wonderful names like Taleswapper, and Thrower. Alvin Jr. has brothers named Wastenot and Wantnot, Calm and Measure. You are also able to figure out that the story is taking place in an America that is slightly different than the frontier America we are familiar with. Here folklore, myth and magic are realities. Traditional religion seems like it will also have a role to play.

I’m not doing this book justice with my review. I can say that I did want to go and pick up the next one right away but I’m making myself wait and read a few other books first.