Welcome to Litsy!

Well written, but rather strange story of a swamp-living family and a search for resolution after grief. Kind of blunt and somewhat off-putting in a poetic way.
Could be a little shorter too. It took me a while to read.

Starting this one that was in a Little Free Library.

#Mythical
#TitleWith?or!
#ItTakesAllKinds @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @Eggs

#BookBinge 10. #InvolvesDragon 14. #InvolvesAnimals

#photochallenges #summerreading #animals #dragons #monsters #travel #magicalrealism #fantasy #amusementparks #UnitedStates #Florida #Everglades #alligators #family

@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @Eggs

“Swamp people are the last outlaws in this country, kid!”
A genre I rly rly enjoy, and is truly under appreciated: the Florida fiction. Florida is a magical place where some very different shit happens. I do like books that take place in the south in general, but I gotta say, FL stories are one of a kind, and have a certain feel to them. This one was pretty cool.

Can I join the #tarottakeover party? My Knight of Wands pick would be Ava Bigtree from Swamplandia! I definitely understand the criticism I‘ve read of it here. While it gets bogged down and wanders for too long, my care for the three siblings kept me reading. Ava embodies the fiery energy, passion, and impulsiveness of the Wands, and her adventure takes us to the extremes of what total freedom looks like for children on the outskirts.

Getting Tiger King/Geek Love vibes from this book. Really enjoying it, even though vanishing-way-of-life stories are so melancholy. What will happen to Ava? A transition to the mainland would entail such a loss of freedom and oddity. You can‘t exactly keep a gator as a pet in an apartment (though this is Florida, so...).

Carl Jenks was 37 years old, his oldest sister taught astronomy to undergraduates at Dartmouth College, he himself had a master‘s degree in some undisclosed discipline—he‘d offer these facts to anyone who approached him, like a caterer with a tray of bitter hors d‘oeuvres.

A story about a dysfunctional family who owns a gator wrestling theme park in the Everglades, grappling with the loss of their matriarch.

Not the usual romance....

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/books/50-states-50-love-stories.html?auth=log...

#LITSYLEARN @Alora

1. I have never read a Harry Potter book, when we were young my friends and I found a body in the river like in Stand By Me, I was born with 6 toes on my left foot.
2. Swamplandia. The more I think about it, the more I hate it.
3. Yes. I have been to several author panels at book shows, and several book signings. Maggie Stiefvater and Patrick Rothfuss were fun.
4. Cold. If I get too hot I feel sick.

#RescueMe #MOvember
It's that time of year where I'm going over my favorite reads of 2019, and I know Swamplandia! will be high on my list. I was rooting for one character's rescue so intensely that I was almost surprised when I set the book down and found that I wasn't wandering in the Everglades with her. Narratives about being lost in the woods generally freak me out more than other situations - it's so easy to picture it happening.
@Cinfhen

I am supposed to be reading our family book club pick, but I grabbed this out of my nearest #LittleFreeLibrary yesterday and oops! started it instead. I think Jenny knows. 😆 Really enjoying it so far! Hoping to finish it in a day or two so I can get back to Killers of the Flower Moon before the fam realizes I started another book. 📚

#currentread #swamplandia #femaleprotagonist #booknerd #canthelpmyself #paperback #meow #catlady #pageturner

Swamplandia and The World of Darkness are two Florida theme parks in this novel, both given unflattering, behind the scenes portrayals, and somehow I still wanted to visit both. I think Russell's novel explores why we like places like this- how much our imagination can fill in the gaps of what is obviously phony. It's a coming of age novel focusing on the gator-wrestler children of Swamplandia, often funny but also equal parts disturbing 👇

Is it possible this is the first time I've seen 'Na-uh' in print?
I have so many questions:
1) I'm not around kids much...do they still say this?
2) If the answer to #1 is yes, is there common advice to writers to avoid kid-slang? Is there even much other kid-slang that isn't just errors in grammar? I was trying to think of examples but I'm drawing a blank.
3) Is the accepted spelling for the common reply, 'Ya-huh'? Or 'Yuh-huh'?

#Star #AyUpAugust
Hilola Bigtree was a star alligator wrestler and the biggest draw for the gator island theme park of the title. But her death from cancer left the novel's 14-year-old protagonist Ava without a mother and the family's park in danger of bankruptcy. I'm only 77 pages in, but loving this one so far. A little uneasy about the somewhat low Litsy & Goodreads ratings though- hope it doesn't lose steam as it goes 🤞

Totally not going to hit 24 because my kids keep me too busy on the weekends (plus I missed about 4 hours when I didn‘t know to use a timer!) but I‘m still using this challenge just to see how much I can squeeze in! #mbcreadathon #mbcfrogsread7

🐊🎢👻 #mbcreadathon #mbdfrogsread6

#mbcreadathon #mbcfrogsread5

My toddler‘s bookshelf since mine is entirely digital. #mbcreadathon #mbcfrogsread4

Didn‘t know to start a timer 🤷🏼‍♀️ #mbcreadathon #mbcfrogsread3

My niece recommended this (she read it in a course) and I gotta‘ tell you, I was blown away by the story. .SWAMPLANDIA tells the tale of the Bigtree family who are involved in “herpetological sports”

More importantly, Karen Russell, gives us the powerful story of three siblings, Ava, Ossie and Kiwi, who find very different solutions to their broken lives and discover “mothers burning inside the risen suns of their children”

Highly recommended.

Zafón is a literary genius. So simultaneously reading Labyrinth and Swamplandia! only highlighted how very poorly Russell stacks up. Also, this image depicts what is unfinishable about Swamplandia! when in the hands of someone who is, imho, incapable of handling it. #thankunext #ohhellno

So I release Swamplandia! back to the wild, and continue w Zafon. I also took up another Coyle installment & started Mount Misery today!

Read 1/2, then DNF.

Last book on the #LMPBC tour (before return of own book): Swamplandia! Can‘t wait to get to it 😁

Thank you @Chrissyreadit for such thoughtful & generous & fun goodies!! That color-changing candle looks so cool! The notebook is gorgeous, the coffee-card, bookmark, and color postcards are perfect, the tissues are so cute, and I love those chocolate espresso beans! 🤤 I also cannot wait to try those tea spoons — so cool!! Thank you!!!
♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

I will work hard to mail this tomorrow @Avanders I normally love character driven books but this was so depressing. And it had children not being cared for, some other triggers. I consider it well written but I hated the story. Possibly good if you like really sad books with horrible situations and ambiguous resolutions. #lmpbc

I am using the #bookfitnesschallenge in a different way. Chronic pain has limited many types of movement, so this challenge has inspired and encouraged me to work on daily activities I have been unable to do (relying on my kids) such as cooking more (standing) and cleaning/organizing spaces with the idea that movement is movement. So I have (with help) organized and cleaned my garage (3hours) and storage room (2hours)in addition to above. #bfc

Currently rates right there with Lord of The Flies, The Catcher in the Rye and The Road. (I have not read the road and have no intention of ever reading the road). I‘m trying my #lmpbc friends- @TK421 @cobwebmoth @Avanders I keep thinking there‘s got to be a happy ending- but then I realize the way this book is written it, happy ending may have a very different meaning.

I am just getting home for the day and able to post s picture and thank @cobwebmoth and @TK421 for my #LMPBC and tea and cute notepad and brewing basket. I love that you made the tea Laura! And you were so smart to put everything in plastic bags. We have so much rain and flooding!!! The paper tantrum notepad is exactly what I need!!!!

We begin with something few have opportunity to utter: Yikes! Our island home and adjacent family-owned-and-operated alligator-wrestling theme park are besieged with trouble! But that‘s what‘s happening here, and that‘s the beauty of swamp fiction, we suppose. Swamplandia! makes us feel all brackish! and reptilian! and sweaty! It may deserve an award for morass literature. Someday, we‘ll think of it in positive terms. But for now, what the heck.

My #LMPBC book has been hand delivered to @cobwebmoth . I mostly enjoyed this book. I was a little late finishing it, but I have faith in Laura's mad reading skills. Everything should still be sent out on time to you @Chrissyreadit . I'm jumping right in to @Avanders book now.
#teamgloriousdisaster

1. I finally remembered that I need to read my #LMPBC book, so I just started Swamplandia.

2. Captain Marvel. It was awesome! One of the best Marvel movies so far.

3. Coffee with enough cream and sugar to be the color of this graphic.

#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain

I love the illustration on the cover of this audiobook. Just starting, so no thoughts on the text yet.

Ava Bigtree, a young protagonist with an awesome voice and insight, dreams of saving both her family from various plights and their failing crocodile park in a Florida swamp.

(Trying this ebook thing, not a bad setup! I do prefer real books still. Enjoy this picture of a dog in snow boots in lieu of a book pic.)

Read January 18-21
Book 5/55

Thank you @robinb
What a sweet Christmas surprise! 💕💕💕

This book is about belief; it‘s necessity and it‘s dangers. It never really grabbed me.

Day 23 #sisforseptember is #scenic & I'm going with this book that has amazing descriptions of the Florida Everglade swamps. I never finished this one for some reason, but I loved what I had read. It was quirky and evocative. I'll start it again.
@CaliforniaCay

Read this lovely novel about Florida down in South Florida while in one of my favorite coffee shops. I first started this about five years ago when I was walking the Florida trail but my reading was a little all over the place on that trip. Loved it this time through!

I‘ve been curious to read this. Ava who grows up in an alligator-themed amusement #park in Florida, where her family entertains tourists by swimming and wrestling with alligators. When her mother, a famous alligator wrestler, died, Ava trains to become the world‘s youngest alligator wrestler. Anyone read this? Recommended?
#AugustIsATrip

Talk about a random stack...

#Bookwithonewordtitle from my 2018 reading list.
#Julyinbooks18

This was not very cohesive....separate storylines that came out of nowhere. I enjoyed it for awhile but by the end I was skimming everything that wasn't dialogue. The dark at the end was a surprise as well.

I cannot recommend this book enough.... it was absolutely one of my favorite reads of all time.. the story, writing, heroine - it was absolutely a treat. I laught and cried, and 4 years later after I've read it, I can't stop thinking of this book. Karen Russel is incredibly talented and I'm looking forward to read more stories in the future

DNF

I tried. I really tried, but I got to page 130 and still was struggling to keep reading. It was an interesting story but I wasn't compelled to keep going.
#bookaddict #booknerd #bookish #bibliophile #bookworm #booklove #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookquotes #instabooks #booklion #book #library #shelfie #bookaholic #reading #reader #currentlyreading #newbook #booklove

#QuoteOfTheDay

So I finally finished Swamplandia! last night. I made myself finish because I was so ready to move on to whatever the next book was going to be. Swamplandia! is creative, full of quotable quotes, has a fantastic main character, but for some reason, I wasn't rushing back home to read it. I didn't miss it when I wasn't reading it. So, for that reason alone, I have to rate it so-so. Wish I liked it more.

So I've been on hiatus dealing with some life stuff but I have some cool things in the works! But I take the time to savor Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

#bookaddict #booknerd #bookish #bibliophile #bookworm #booklove #bookstagram

"It was strange to watch a face having that kind of secret disagreement with itself."

I wanted to read this book ever since I first heard about it. I love stories set in the swamps. A family that runs an alligator wrestling theme park, that alone is fascinating to me. I would have liked to see more of the day to day operations of the park.

I felt like the book was the strongest when describing the two theme parks. The imagery of the swamp was beautiful. I just wish the girls hadn't made such stupid decisions.