Oh Swamplandia!, how I wanted to like you.  You were set in the Everglades!  Among the alligator wrestler tourist traps!  With an eccentric family in crisis!  You employed beautiful language, and flirted with magical realism! 

You made me so damn mad.

SPOILERS

Why Swamplandia! irritated me so much.

Because 1) it plays on the same old tired trope that slyly seems to suggest that girls/women should be grateful for being raped because it gives them a chance to be strong in the face of adversity.  To rise beyond this horrible thing.  To become a powerful character.  Their "origin story" if you will.  You know what?  I'm sick to death of that.  While rape/child molestation is regrettably common, there are many many many other conflicts that girls and women can rise above.  This book even started with those: the death of the mother, the splintering of the family and their way of life, the older sister going slightly mad....  I was excited about those.  The long-foreseen rape of the 13 year old girl?  NOT.

Because 2) it reaffirms the cliche that in times of crisis and stress, women make bad, emotional choices, while the menfolk suck it up and do the work.  I loved Kiwi's sojourn among the alien mainlanders, his slow realization that maybe he's not as bright as he thinks he is, that the real world is harder to navigate than he thinks it is.  But he & his father get to work on the mainland, and the sisters--get to keep house at the alligator farm until they make their "foolish" choices: Osceola to 'marry' a ghost and Ava to trust a complete stranger to take her deep into the Everglades in search of her sister.  Each individual choice is interesting and believable, but big picture, they still add up to women doing dumb things.  Kiwi even saves Osceola from the aftermath of her choices.  Sweeping in on a plane like the heroic "Angel" he's been dubbed.  IRKSOME.

Because 3) it lured me in with magical realism and then shot it all down.  Osceola's ghosts are mental illness, Ava's Bird Man, an uncannily magical creature, is just a man and a bad one at that.  Even the mysterious red alligator comes to nothing.  Bleah. 

Because 4) there was so much gorgeous writing and world-building that I tried really hard to love it, but that just made the disappointment more bitter.

In short: while the world-building and language are both beautiful, the novel as a whole feels horrifically predictable. 

Next up: THE GIANT, O'BRIEN