Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“A kid is a terrible thing to be, in charge of nothing.”

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

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Do you want another review of Demon Copperhead? I know we already have plenty of them on this site, and you can throw a stone on the web and hit 20 different reviews – this book is insanely popular right now – so there’s no argument about NEEDING another review. Well, here’s one more – I’ll try not to repeat but as fellow writers-of-reviews, you know how tricky that can be with such a popular novel. Things you probably already know: the novel is a […]

This is what I would say if I could, to all the smart people of the world with their dumb hillbilly jokes: We are right here in the stall. We can actually hear you.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

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I know that this novel is a contemporary spin on Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield. In fact, almost everything written about this book centers around that comparison. I guess that her naming of the main character (also the title of the book) makes that discussion unavoidable. But, I would argue that a lot of Kingsolver novels are Dickensian: following the lives of people who are often dismissed as unintelligent, unapproachable, and strange. People who are held responsible for their own misfortune. People that are kept in […]

Dickens in Appalachia

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

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Demon Copperhead, born to a drug-addicted single mother in an Appalachian trailer park, is the protagonist of Barbara Kingsolver’s new novel, a modern re-telling of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield. Like his literary forebear, Demon’s life will be full of struggle and cruelty, mostly from an indifferent society and from adults who are too focused on their own problems to help out. The beats of the story will be familiar to anyone who has read the original novel. Demon’s mother makes a terrible miscalculation in marrying […]

Without shelter, we stand in daylight.

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

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CBR11 Bingo: Science! I am not a science-y person, but I am a pretty avid gardener. Having spent a lot of time playing in the dirt, coaxing plant life to flourish and googling to find out what bug is terrorizing my plants, I am a sucker for fiction that circles the natural sciences. Barbara Kingsolver is the first author that I encountered that delves in that particular niche. A friend recommended her book “Prodigal Summer” to me several years ago and I was hooked. She […]

If fight or flight is the choice, it’s way easier to fly. (BINGO #2)

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According to Goodreads I shelved this as TBR on June 14, 2013. I’m sure there are books that have been on my TBR list longer, but I would have no idea what they are.Therefore, this book is my Backlog book. I don’t know why it took me so long to read this book, I know I enjoy Kingsolver’s writing, but whatever the reason I’m glad this challenge gave me a reason to pick it up. Dellarobia is a young woman trapped by life in a […]

I can see why people love this, but I didn’t.

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This was really well-written, but I wasn’t in the mood for it. Three stars for now, but probably if I had been in the mood, it would have been four stars, so let’s split the difference. The Poisonwood Bible is an important book, one that is probably good for everyone to read and think about it. The book follows the story of the Price family. The father, Nathan, is a Baptist preacher whose gotten it in to his head to save the souls of the […]



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