A little life vs Daemon Copperfield

[Thingamebobwotsit]

Read the latter, loved it. Bought the former based on discussions with a very enthusiastic bookseller and I am now reading the reviews am wondering whether I have bitten off more misery than I can chew.

Have you read both? Is it worth starting A Little Life? Or should I leave it for a bit?

My pile of books to read is tall enough to work through a few others first.

Thanks

I hated A Little Life with a passion. It annoys me to see it in bookshops still!

I've not read DC but it is on my TBR list.
I did struggle through ALL back in my days of not giving up on a book. It was one of the books that changed my mindset to life is too short to read books you are not enjoying (I know enjoying is the wrong word, but you all know what I mean)
The other book I wish I had given up on and got the hours back was The Bee Sting (Sorry OP!)

I really enjoyed The Bee Sting, apart from the ending.

Ooh love love loved the Bee Sting! Enjoy

I got about half way through ALL. Gave up on it, the relentless horror. Decided to check out a synopsis of the rest of it and actually laughed out loud at the fact it got worse, and worse, and worse. And to no real point, that I could see.

@Charabanc I actually just read a review of ALL (looked up the wikipedia article off the back of this thread) that claims that ALL isn't misery porn, because there's "no catharsis" - it just stays relentlessly miserable all the way through. If that's not misery porn I don't know what is!

I couldn't get through a little life, tried another by the same author which started off ok then went downhill from there! She seems to write nothing but miserable books where every character is either horribly abused or a paedophile! Haven't read daemon copperfield but I enjoyed the posionwood bible.

I read Demon Copperhead because my book club chose it a few months ago and I really enjoyed it. Possibly helps that as a child I played Dora in a production of David Copperfield, so I knew the plot and found it entertaining how Kingsolver had taken the original work out of its original context and into a different time and place.

Demon Copperhead was the first of hers I read. I’m just finishing The Poisonwood Bible, which is far and away the best book I’ve read this year.
Delighted to have found a new author to work my way through!

This is next on my list! Good to hear.

Realised I called it Daemon Copperfield. Am glad you all knew what I was talking about 😁.

Really enjoying The Bee Sting so far.

This is EXACTLY how I felt about it. Page after page, I would ask myself why I was reading this… and then I would get to a paragraph where the prose would take my breath away.

I didn’t like DC at all and gave up a few chapters in. Couldn’t see anything redeeming about it. Probably best that I don’t bother with ALL, then!

@Thingamebobwotsit let us know what you think about the Bee Sting. One of my favourite books ever. I still go around months later asking reading fans if they have read it and what they think of the ending. I think there were a few threads on it here too.

I agree. A little Life was the worst book I have ever read.

Same. Totally unbelievable misery fest.

Barbara Kingsolver is brilliant. I'd also recommend Flight Behaviour which is, in part, an explanation of why Trump supporters vote the way they do. I think Demon Copperhead touches on this too. BK is very much not a Trump supporter but comes from the Appalacian region and resents the way people she grew up with have been left behind and are often vilified as hillbillies or rednecks.

Ooh, we're famous! 😆

Online, there are tearful TikTok reviews and Instagram selfies of fans tattooed with their favourite lines but also outraged Reddit and Mumsnet threads condemning it as misery porn – a charge levelled repeatedly in reviews for A Little Life, many of which are scathing.

What our obsession with Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life ...

😆

Still not planning on picking it up again just yet, based on that article, though. If it remains untouched until next year I will pop it in a charity shop drop off. I don't have a week to recover...

I did find it interesting reading more about the author. Still not going to finish reading ALL though 😆

I read a chapter of ALL and put it down.

Read Tara Westover's book 'Educated' instead and highly recommend that.