Community Reviews
Damnation Spring is an ambitious, heart-wrenching debut with beautifully flawed characters and an immersive setting. It’s not often a book brings me to tears, but this book left me an emotional mess. I won’t be surprised if it ends up as one of my top reads for the year. I would even venture to say it’s a perfect novel.
While it took me a while to settle into, by the end of the book I was completely invested in the story of this broken and troubled family. I didn’t want to leave them. Davidson has brought a small logging town in the 1970s Pacific Northwest to life. And while some of the logging jargon was hard to follow at times, it never took me out of the book. In fact, it made it even more real.
And that’s what they made Google for, anyway, right?? I love when a good story also teaches me something.
I was repeatedly impressed with Davidson’s ability to have me sympathizing with the loggers when I knew if I was plopped down into this story, I’d be one of the hippie tree-huggers. She humanized each character, whether they were ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
The book is told from three different points of view: Rich, his wife Colleen, and their five year old son Chub. I was never lost when the views changed, each voice distinct and beloved by the end.
While it deals with some very heavy and serious subjects—environmental degradation, infidelity, miscarriage, birth defects—at its heart, it’s a novel about perseverance, family history, commitment, and love. This story wrecked me. In a good way, and I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.
Thank you to Scribner and Netgalley for an advanced reader’s copy.
Check out my reviews and playlists at A Book Wanderer
While it took me a while to settle into, by the end of the book I was completely invested in the story of this broken and troubled family. I didn’t want to leave them. Davidson has brought a small logging town in the 1970s Pacific Northwest to life. And while some of the logging jargon was hard to follow at times, it never took me out of the book. In fact, it made it even more real.
And that’s what they made Google for, anyway, right?? I love when a good story also teaches me something.
I was repeatedly impressed with Davidson’s ability to have me sympathizing with the loggers when I knew if I was plopped down into this story, I’d be one of the hippie tree-huggers. She humanized each character, whether they were ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
The book is told from three different points of view: Rich, his wife Colleen, and their five year old son Chub. I was never lost when the views changed, each voice distinct and beloved by the end.
While it deals with some very heavy and serious subjects—environmental degradation, infidelity, miscarriage, birth defects—at its heart, it’s a novel about perseverance, family history, commitment, and love. This story wrecked me. In a good way, and I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.
Thank you to Scribner and Netgalley for an advanced reader’s copy.
Check out my reviews and playlists at A Book Wanderer
I was skeptical on whether I was going to like this book when I first started reading it. However, as I continued, I fell in love with the story and the characters. The ending will completely shatter you, but it was worth it.
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