Swamplandia!

· Sold by Vintage
4.2
4 reviews
Ebook
336
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • The bravely imagined, wildly acclaimed debut novel from the author of Vampires in the Lemon Groveabout a thirteen year old girl who sets out on a mission through magical swamps to save her family.

"Ms. Russell is one in a million.... A suspensfuly, deeply haunted book." —The New York Times


Thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree has lived her entire life at Swamplandia!, her family’s island home and gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades. But when illness fells Ava’s mother, the park’s indomitable headliner, the family is plunged into chaos; her father withdraws, her sister falls in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, defects to a rival park called The World of Darkness.

As Ava embarks on her mission to save them all, we are drawn into a lush debut that takes us to the shimmering edge of reality.

Ratings and reviews

4.2
4 reviews
Christopher Simpson
November 28, 2014
Having grown up in South Florida, the imagery and landscape are very near and dear to me. Karen Russell does an excellent job of exploring death, family roles, and girl power through the use of the swamp and amusement park. The amusement park, a masculine dominated area with gender roles played out in small stories, men winning "their girl," the prize, is used to explore the Bigtree family. Their are many ideas here but the idea that girls continually need to be educated and protected rings home.
1 person found this review helpful
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Cathryn the Great
February 5, 2023
The book is pretty interesting especially as Kiwi and Ava have their experiences. Child rape was the worst part of the book.
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About the author

KAREN RUSSELL, a native of Miami, won the 2012 National Magazine Award for fiction, and her first novel, Swamplandia! (2011), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is a graduate of the Columbia MFA program, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2012 Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. She lives in Philadelphia.

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