Swamplandia!, Karen Russell's debut novel focuses on a 100-acre theme park in the Florida Everglades that is run by the alligator-wrestling Bigtree clan. As is the case with most entertainment parks, much of Swamplandia! and the Bigtree family is all smoke and mirrors. When the matriarch of the Bigtree family dies, the entire business venture literally falls apart. Not surprisingly, it's around this point in the book that everything else goes to hell in a handbasket as well. I found the writing to be very dark and heavy, the characters quirky and dysfunctional. The characters never really seemed to develop. The story never really took off and lacked cohesion. I was disappointed with the book after all of the glowing reviews and accolades it received in the mainstream media. As with Swamplandia! I guess it was all just smoke and mirrors, a media event. Piffle!

This is one of those books that bibliophiles are supposed to love, but it's a bit hard to get into. The writing is unique and interesting and the characters are quirky. Not to mention, the setting is fantastic. But the story drags on and on. Finally you get to the climax, and it's a very dark one at that. I recommend it if you have the patience to get to the end.

I don't like being wet. I don't like being hot. I don't like swarming insects. Since the characters in Swamplandia! spend a great deal of their time wet, hot, and/or surrounded by insects, that in itself would be enough to keep me uncomfortable. Add to that ... well, almost everything else about the crocodile-wrestling Bigtrees and you have just about the squirmiest, most unpleasant novel I can imagine. Despite all that, there was a definite magical quality woven throughout that kept me from throwing the book down and swatting at imaginary mosquitos. Swamplandia! depicts the epic collapse of a larger-than-life Florida show-biz family that has survived on a combination of hyperbolic mythology and disdain for normalcy. After the matriarch and star attraction dies of cancer, the Bigtree family's Swamplandia! theme park is further threatened by a well-funded but banal mainland attraction that siphons off their remaining guests. Facing foreclosure, papa Bigtree ventures to the mainland to conduct unspecified business and leaves his three children behind. Whatever tenuous connection with reality these three home-schooled, erudite-yet-somewhat-feral kids has is quickly severed. Ava's journey through the Florida swamps with the Bird Man (and her subsequent escape from him) was definitely dark and tense but also lyrical, like a Nick Cave song. Kiwi's parallel mainland adventure was less engaging; he often made me feel like smacking him. In the end, each of the Bigtree children is transformed, deflowered, and subsumed into the reality their father sought to escape for so long. Just as the Melaleuca trees invaded their beloved swamps, civilization finally gains a stranglehold on the Bigtrees.

It's such a good book.

I had a difficult time getting through this book. I read the whole book because it's one my book club chose. It seemed, to me, that the story was always just about ready to 'take off', but never really did. The characters were unsympathetic to me. I didn't care much what happened to them. The book lacked a cohesiveness throughout.

I liked this book, despite its dark nature! Thought that the characters were all interesting and quirky and I enjoyed watching them develop as their family drama unfolded. It left me feeling heavy, but I think the story was compelling, at times mythical and dream-like.

How to even start to review this book? The characters are the gravity that pulls this story together, that gives it the roots it needs to take you on an incredible, unbelievable, fantastical and moving journey. The setting especially becomes its own character with the author deftly using the breadth of her vocabulary. At times Russell's colorful writing leaves you lost and you flounder to find a footing to pull you back up, but that is the beauty of the swamp I think. Oftentimes it is utterly fascinating to read about a life and people that you've no experience with, which can only help your understanding of the world we live in and all aspects of it. What this story really deals with though is grief and how each character deals with the repercussions of having the center of their life taken away. I'm definitely glad to have read this book and would recommend it heartily to anyone who likes strong characters, vibrant settings, and a liking for oddness.

Dysfunctional family drama, creepy swamp scenes, a twisty plot, clever prose style and lots of humour - I loved it.

I thought Swamplandia! was gonna be all Wes Anderson-esque, but then it took a turn down a dark alley. And that was pretty okay with me. I would love to direct a movie of this if I had, you know, any experience directing. The descriptions are so vivid and precise - each sensation is so concisely and perfectly conveyed that it would be no trouble at all to convert it to film. I have to wonder, if fact, if the increasingly visual nature of media has been influencing recent writing. I felt much the same with The Night Circus. Anyway, all this means is I should probably read St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.

There is a story here, but I think the author missed it. It would be a better read if the focus were on the Chief's thought process and the other Bigfeet contribute as a supporting cast.