Laura Gembolis's Reviews > Demon Copperhead

I get the popularity of this book, and I don’t get it. In my younger days, I avoided things that got too popular, because I knew that I couldn’t come to it without expectations that would leave me less than satisfied. I never saw the movie, “Run Lola Run” because the people in my sphere could not stop talking about it. And in 2023, everyone I knew recommended that I read this book.

Looking at other GR reviews, I see a lot of 3 to 5 star reviews. It seems even the people who did not enjoy it still gave it 3 stars. This makes me think that there is some pressure to acknowledge a certain quality to the book, and I think that I fall into that camp.

I decided to read David Copperfield first, which was my first Dickens (besides Christmas Carol). When I decided to read David Copperfield, I found out that Dickens is really not my jam. I found David pompous and aggrandizing. I found anytime the plot started to get interesting it dropped those characters and moved on to another observation or event. I was uncomfortable with Dickens’ depiction of women in the novel. However, some GR reviews stated reading David Copperfield diminished their enjoyment of Demon Copperhead. The opposite was true for me. I don’t think that I would have finished Demon Copperhead if I didn’t read David Copperfield first. Reading David Copperfield first made reading Demon Copperhead more of an intellectual game. What things felt loyal to David Copperfield, what things were varied, and what was the cumulative impact of those choices. That was interesting to me. While I know many people love Dickens’ David Copperfield’s narration, I felt that Kingsolver nailed the narration with a voice that is both cloying and pompous. I never believed David loved Dora. It always came across as lust and control. I believed that Demon loved Dori.

I get the hype and enjoyed that a writer invited her readers to compare her writing to another writer from a completely different era.