First Published : October 2022

Genre : Fiction, Literary

My Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐

There was so much hype around the book and my expectations were sky high. I had not read David Copperfield, so I truly went in knowing next to nothing. I picked this book for my 2024 Read Good Challenge reading prompt for the month of April. Yup! I started this book in April and it took me three months and multiple side breaks to finish this book. So why the 4 stars you may ask? There are many books you can’t finish because you are not invested enough but there are very few where you take time because you are too invested in it. This one squarely falls in the latter category.

Right off the bat the book had me hooked and I loved the way Barbara Kingsolver introduced us to Damon Fields who gets nicknamed Demon Copperhead.

At the beginning, even though the tone is kept light, we see the harsh reality – when parents don’t get their act together, the children suffer the most. How sometimes children have to face consequences for something they had so little to do with. They grow up too fast, too soon.

Starting from that day, in that kitchen, I was on my own. New year, new life, not yet in my own house making the payments, but that’s how I felt: my own man. Not liking it a bit.

As you move along, you see Demon feeling his happiness to be temporary. Even when things are going good for him, he feels it’s impermanence, always looking over his shoulder to ensure he isn’t slipping up anywhere. That, at the turn of the corner, his good luck is going to end.

So the impossible happened. In due time, a school would be owned by Demon Copperhead in his Members Only jacket. He should have been the happiest damn fool ever. But no, he’s waiting for the shit to hit the fan, looking behind whoever is being nice to him that day to see what’s coming.

I wanted to go home. Which was nowhere, but it’s a feeling you keep having, even after that’s no place anymore.

I was already invested in him so much, that I wanted good things to happen and yep I took some breaks and read some other books (four) in between to get over this feeling.

Demon is not a typical protagonist who will say and do stuff that is righteous. Even with all the odds stacked against him, he is trying to survive the best way he can. Every time Demon went down, I felt an urge to cry out loud and ask him to stop and also knew he wouldn’t listen. I wanted the adults to help him more, to let him rely on them more. I knew next to nothing about drugs, it’s types, variants or effects but while reading the book it felt like I had front row seat to someone’s life. That’s the power of the Barbara Kingsolver’s writing. She made Demon too real for me. His feelings, his disappointment in the adults around him, his choices.

It was a difficult read, and yes I took my time going through it. But honestly so worthwhile.

This is written at the Acknowledgement section in the book and it made my heart clench.

For the kids who wake up hungry in those dark places every day, who’ve lost their families to poverty and pain pills, whose caseworkers keep losing their files, who feel invisible, or wish they were: this book is for you.