Well done, but not to my taste. Russell's sentences are well crafted and she manages to create a sophisticated, well-spoken, yet amazingly innocent main character in Ava Bigtree. The story is compelling, a unique blend of realism and fantasy that truly mean anything can happen. Most of the novel is...
Swamplandia is the story of a family on the verge of failure, and the various ways that collapse comes to pass after Hilola Bigtree, mother, wife and celebrated alligator wrestler, dies suddenly. It's the story of a family struggling in uncertain economic times, being squeezed out by a corporate the...
Mildly interesting. I loved that it was set in a swamp, but oh my lord, the forced metaphores and similes made me want to put my eyes out. I didn't get the point of the side story with the brother. Overall, a fun, light summer read.
The Book Report: The Bigtree family, two-generation swamp folks, have reached the end of their useful lives as purveyors of alligator wrestling and mild amusements to the tourists of fictional Loomis County, in the Ten Thousand Islands. Chief Sam Bigtree loses his wife Hilola, and after that the wil...
I really, really wanted to like this book. Russell's prose is quite lovely - she constructs some really nifty metaphors and turns of phrase. The plot really didn't do it for me, though. It simply didn't hold my interest. I set the book down for a few days, distracted by various projects, and I could...
The Bigtrees live a life apart. And the initial appeal of Karen Russell’s cast of characters is the sense of an original setting and unusual inhabitants. A Florida theme park is certainly not an outlandish idea, but the Bigtree version of it is something else. It’s like the kind of history that you ...
Sigh... A terrible disappointment. That is the only way I can describe my experience with this book. There was a great deal of promise, and I really enjoyed getting into the book. But there is a horrible event that occurs near the end of the book which is treated with appalling and unrealistic flipp...
Important: Our sites use cookies.
We use the information stored using cookies and similar technologies for advertising and statistics purposes.
Stored data allow us to tailor the websites to individual user's interests.
Cookies may be also used by third parties cooperating with BookLikes, like advertisers, research companies and providers of multimedia applications.
You can choose how cookies are handled by your device via your browser settings.
If you choose not to receive cookies at any time, BookLikes will not function properly and certain services will not be provided.
For more information, please go to our Privacy Policy.
Log in with Facebook 
