3.0
Swamplandia!
ByPublisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • The bravely imagined, wildly acclaimed debut novel from the author of Vampires in the Lemon Grove—about a thirteen year old girl who sets out on a mission through magical swamps to save her family.
"Ms. Russell is one in a million.... A suspensfuly, deeply haunted book." —The New York Times
Thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree has lived her entire life at Swamplandia!, her family’s island home and gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades. But when illness fells Ava’s mother, the park’s indomitable headliner, the family is plunged into chaos; her father withdraws, her sister falls in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, defects to a rival park called The World of Darkness.
As Ava embarks on her mission to save them all, we are drawn into a lush debut that takes us to the shimmering edge of reality.
"Ms. Russell is one in a million.... A suspensfuly, deeply haunted book." —The New York Times
Thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree has lived her entire life at Swamplandia!, her family’s island home and gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades. But when illness fells Ava’s mother, the park’s indomitable headliner, the family is plunged into chaos; her father withdraws, her sister falls in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, defects to a rival park called The World of Darkness.
As Ava embarks on her mission to save them all, we are drawn into a lush debut that takes us to the shimmering edge of reality.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesSwamplandia! Reviews
3.0
“Swamplandia! was an unexpectedly emotional read. Russell buried gut-punching revelations under comedic relief from the 3 young and inexperienced main characters
While I had fun laughing about Florida potentially being the portal to the underworld, I found myself succumbing to the same naivety that Kiwi, Os, and Ava wrestled with. Through creating lovable and innocent characters, Russell was able to address socioeconomic issues in the Deep South, educational disparities and the consequences of such, and the youthful gullibility that becomes endangered when not actively protected, especially by a parental figure.
The taste of magical realism broke up the heaviness of these topics, making Swamplandia! a powerful and enjoyable novel.”
“I almost put this one down and walked away because I was so bored, but I am pretty happy I didn't. 70% of the book is just chatter, there's really no development in the story or the people, but that last 30% gets sooooo dark. The main narrator is a kid, so it reads from the perspective of like an 11-year-old most of the time, so be prepared to read a story that looks like it's written by a kid. The author really captures how a pre-teen talks and lets that character take over the story, which makes the ending a thousand times darker when it's being told to you from the perspective of this kid. If you can stick with it and get to the end, I'm sure you will be shocked and hooked.”About Karen Russell
KAREN RUSSELL, a native of Miami, won the 2012 National Magazine Award for fiction, and her first novel, Swamplandia! (2011), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is a graduate of the Columbia MFA program, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2012 Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. She lives in Philadelphia.
Other books by Karen Russell
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