I agree with those who've panned the book. I absolutely loved "Poisonwood Bible"; it's perhaps one of my all time favorite novels, so I had high hopes for this one. But from the beginning, I simply didn't find Demon's voice believable. It was far too clever for a child, and …more didn't change as Demon grew older. I also found it annoying that he needed to tell us everything rather than have any other voices involved. I understand that Kingsolver was attempting to emulate Dickens, but the cleverness of Demon's explanations and descriptions very often were not humorous or insightful, but instead not believable and often off putting.

The other thing that really bothered me was that, while Kingsolver "says" (through Demon, of course) that she wants to show the people of Appalachia in a positive light, I actually found her depictions, for the most part (barring a few one-dimensional heroes), quite negative and stereotypical, from the druggie mom to the abusive stepdad, from the flawed but ultimately good-guy coach to the evil and conniving "U-Haul," from the good nurse to the drug addled girlfriend. Rather than writing a book where people are "seen," she seems to have written a book where people are on display, where we can wring our hands and feel that we are on the right side of justice, even as we'd never move to "those" parts and certainly wouldn't want "those" people moving into our neighborhoods. Ultimately, reading this book felt like being scolded by someone who was upholding the very same stereotypes she was attempting to subvert. (less)