A novel I wasn't sure I'd like, but I did. ( )

I live-tweeted my reading of part of this book (because I'm hunkered down for Hurricane Irma but thankfully I still have power). For a more extensive version of my thoughts on Swamplandia!, you can read the series of tweets.

In the end, I thought that Swamplandia! was a novel that really should have been a few strong short stories instead.

There was a lot to like about the book. I especially enjoyed the specificity Russell used when she talked about ecology, flora and fauna, and Florida history. Those are some of my main areas of writing and research, and I'm a real stickler about them. So to impress me on that front is a huge deal.

What got in the way of me enjoying the book more was, as Karen Auvinen put it on twitter, Swamplandia! "gets confused about what kind of book it wants to be."

There's a dissociation between the tone and diction of the narration from the setting and the events of the story. It's like the narrator is a talking head floating over all of it. She isn't part of the world. She doesn't seem to belong there. Kiwi's sections are different. I honestly really did like his first section in The Underworld.

It's a novel by a short story writer, much too episodic and without a strong enough through line.

In the end, Swamplandia! wasn't terrible, but it didn't really come through for me. It was too messy, too indecisive. It was a book with a lot of potential that tried to be too many kinds of books at once. If it had done a few of those things well and nixed the rest, this would have been a really stellar book. Instead, the indecision made it just "okay" for me. 3.5 stars ( )

The author could have cut out about half of the description of the swamps during Ava's search; it's like filling in a really detailed background when all the audience wants is the portrait of Mona Lisa. Also, the ending left me unfulfilled. It seems like the author just ran out of steam and cut off the story without giving a good explanation for it all, or any sense of how the characters felt about their experiences.

Countering these negatives is the main positive: the characters. I really was interested in them, and related in my own ways with each of their personal dramas. Even the times when I was like, "Come on! Get your head out of your ass!" I still understood a little why they could not, in fact, get their heads out of their asses. ( )

Swaplandia is an interesting story of three siblings. A boy and two girls. The boy is a practical down to earth type but the girls both have vivid imaginations and see things in a different kind of way. So much so, that they believe in ghost. And what makes the story really interesting is that the author makes us want to believe right along with the girls. Readers of this book will ask them selves " Am I reading a ghost story here, or the story of two delusional misguided young girls. I wont spoil the book by revealing the answer. I'll let you find out for yourself... ( )

Not bad. There's a lot of 'almost' in this book. Does the pace of character development match the pace of the plot line? Almost. Does the language and imagery keep its edge throughout? Almost. Is the inclusion of a trauma justified in the end? Almost.
One more critical edit and I might have loved this. Worth reading for the delight of characters and setting, and a few very thoughtful moments. ( )