A modern day retelling of David Copperfield, Demon Copperhead is storytelling at its best, the kind of book that grabs you on the first page and holds you till the last (even though it's fairly chunky at 540 or so pages).

Set in rural Virginia, it takes the broad aspects of David Copperfield and applies it to the real location of Lee County, in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains, where the decline of the main industries of mining and tobacco have left many families living relative poverty. We follow our protagonist and narrator from birth through to late teens, as he mirrors the misfortune of David Copperfield and is passed from one dysfunctional adult to the next in early childhood. As the years pass and a young Demon becomes a teenager, we witness the sorrowful impact of a childhood of neglect through a series of bad choices he makes as a young man.

It's a sad and impactful book as we ride along with Demon through a virtually non-existent childhood into an inevitable adolescence of major wrong turns. Kingsolver creates a very likeable character in Demon, which enables you to stick with him as a reader despite the unravelling of his life. You root for him, wanting his luck to turn and for him to be loved and supported after a lifetime of being let down.

I've not ready David Copperfield and I don't think it matters to enjoy this novel. Post reading Demon Copperhead I've read the synopsis of David Copperfield and can now see where Kingsolver took her various references and plot lines from, but the two can sit happily independently.

It's a long while since I read a Barbara Kingsolver novel, and I'd forgotten what a master storyteller she is. I never notice her writing style but simply get lost in the story itself, and to me that's the mark of a truly great writer.

5 stars - a simply great read to disappear into. ( )

Although this is a close retelling of the David Copperfield story, and Kingsolver has a lot of fun with the names etc, the overall time and place is so different I'm not entirely sure I'd have noticed if not told! Demon is such a compelling central character and you feel for him as his life takes many awful twists and turns. You root for him all the way and are willing him to succeed in life. But it can't be denied its a long road, and he takes many terrible decisions. The book shows how this comes about, and how limited someones choices can be by circumstances and opportunity.

Its a world away from where I live in the UK, so I can't speak to how accurately it portrays the Appalachian culture or the opioid crisis, but it was certainly a far better insight than the dreadful HIllbilly Elegy. ( )

What a book! What a voice! I have some idea of how Kingsolver found Demon’s voice
and recorded it for us to hear, but in so many ways this is beyond any of her previous
voices and characters. I am absolutely astounded at how real, immediate, believable,
and engaging Demon and his world are.
That last part is important, because Demon’s world is our world. I found myself
wondering as I read it how it would come across to anyone who doesn’t live and work in
Appalachia, and even how it might come across to folks who do live and work in
Appalachia but who don’t regularly have contact with people who have lived lives like
Demon’s. Working in a library, we see Demon and his friends, family, and neighbors all
the time. Somehow though, Kingsolver was able to capture all the different types we
see without it devolving into stereotype. These are the people who come into my library
every day, and while I hope that I fit into the type represented by Mr. Armstrong, I’m
sure that you can find me in others here as well. Demon is the kids who I saw in my
library, and while I know what they’re going through and how they will likely end up, I
really do hope they end up where Demon does. The sad reality is that all too many of
them won’t make it, the same way so many of Demon’s friends end up.
I really can’t emphasize enough: this story is not overblown or exaggerated. I think it
may be tempting for anyone who doesn’t live in these areas or spend time here to think
that it surely can’t be like this. But it is. Kingsolver’s genius is to represent all of that
realistically but not luridly. You never feel like a poverty tourist or a junkie voyeur. You
are witnessing what has happened and what continues to happen to Appalachia. I hope
that many people who think that the people of Appalachia are helpless, drug-addicted,
work-averse fools read this book and realize how wrong they were. I hope that people
who thought Hillbilly Elegy was an insightful glimpse into the problems in Appalachia
read this book and revise that view.
Here are the people of Appalachia, and here is how they will survive. by Nick Tepe, son of Jerry and Holly Tepe

It's an objective 5 stars, but a subjective 4 stars for me.

Biographies or memoirs are not my jam, and this read like a memoir. Which is actually a testament to Kingsolver's excellent writing and talent, but just made it less of my cup of tea than the synopsis made it seem. And it felt a bit too long.

If you love literary fiction and memoirs, this book might be ideal for you. ( )

A complete joy to read.

Not that the content was cheerful but I got sucked into the first-person narrative from page one and found him to be charming and a wonderful guide through this long novel.

A political novel without being a "political" novel. If anything can create empathy for the world of Demon Copperhead, it's fiction. ( )