Demon Copperhead

This is a long, epic book that has received a huge amount of renown, including winning the Pulitzer Prize. Kingsolver modeled the story after Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, but follows the character Demon throughout his childhood in the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. The depiction of the opioid crisis in America is horrific. I appreciated the mastery of the storytelling, but it felt very long, and I found myself coming back to it in between other books. It’s quite like A Little Life in that sense, powerfully written, but a tough read due to the subject matter.

Ferdia Lennon ~ Glorious Exploits ~ 7.5/10.

I really enjoyed this quirky story of classical Greece. Set in 412 BC during the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians have failed in their invasion of Syracuse. The Athenian prisoners have been left in a quarry to starve to death, but two Syracusans, Lampo and Gelon, are united by their joint love of Euripides. They sneak down to the quarry to put on the play Medea, bonding with the prisoners over the mastery of the playwright. It’s funny and dark, slightly fantastical, yet touching at times showing the different sides of war. I don’t think you would need to know much about classical history to enjoy the story.