I love books set during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Two of my favorite novels are The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah. So when I saw The Antidote, I knew I had to read it. It had a high bar to meet, and I wasn't so sure about the magical realism elements since I don't typically like magical realism.

It took me a little while to get into the story as I had trouble connecting with the characters. The early chapters also heavily focused on the woman who was jailed for having a baby out of wedlock, and that wasn't the story I was looking for.

As we focused more on the other residents of Uz and how the Great Depression and Dust Bowl affected them, I found myself much more invested in the story.

I found the invention of the Prairie Witch (who is known as the Antidote) interesting. People deposit memories into the Prairie Witch. It works kind of like a safety deposit box. Once the deposit is made, the person no longer remembers that memory but can retrieve it at any time. Sometimes the memories are happy ones - the memories you don't ever want to forget. More often, though, it is memories that you would rather forget.

The Prairie Witch was the character I struggled the most with as I didn't really understand her role in the story. Once her purpose was made clear, I enjoyed her much more.

I didn't mind the other non-people characters (one is the scarecrow and one is a cat).

I wasn't sure where the story was going and I thought perhaps it was a slice-of-life type novel since we have a young girl who plays basketball, a New Deal photographer, and the grain master narrating the story in addition to the Prairie Witch, scarecrow, and cat. It wasn't until the last third or so of the novel that the point became clear.

While I liked the message of the novel at the end, I think it would have been better a little earlier in the novel. Sure there are a few subtle clues but the story pacing felt meandering at the beginning and then a rush to the conclusion.

As I said I don't read a lot of novels with magical realism elements, but I thought this is one of the best to weave those elements into the story.

My review will be published at Girl Who Reads on Thursday - https://www.girl-who-reads.com/2025/07/the-antidote-by-karen-russell-review.html

This book was not for me. I think it has too many characters/POVs, and not enough hope or humor to move me through a bleak setting. Well written, interesting premise, just not my cup of tea.

WARNING: This book opens with animal cruelty/violence within the first few pages and it was enough to almost make me DNF. I didn't though, and I am glad for it. That level of animal cruelty is not repeated and is only referred back to twice through out the rest of the book.

This book was incredibly well written and the characters were so rich and deep that I felt like I had truly gotten to know them and could relate to their struggles and lives. Each chapter is a different POV of 5 main characters (including a scarecrow). In the beginning it was very hard to keep up with the cast of characters, but I understood who everyone was quickly enough.

It took me 16 days to read the first 3/4 of this book. It just wasn't really holding my attention. I almost DNF'd this book several times. Something in me wanted to continue though because I have loved this authors other works. Then I hit around the 75% mark and couldn't put it down and finished the rest of the book in one sitting. It was such a slow build up and then suddenly everything happened in the last 1/4.

This story's overall theme is so relevant to American life. It is important that more books along this theme continue to be written as they are very poignant reminders of those who were here before us. I almost gave this book a higher rating based on this alone, but I don't believe in pity rating. Just because I didn't enjoy this book more though, doesn't mean I don't appreciate it for what it is. It has a great importance as part of American literature.

** Thank you to Netgalley, Karen Russell and Knopf Publishing for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion **

When I saw that Karen Russell had come out with a new novel I was intrigued. For as much as I gave Swamplandia! an initially poor rating, I realize that I have honestly never stopped thinking about that book and I’ve grown to appreciate it for its uniqueness. Similar to Swamplandia!, Karen Russell sets us up in yet another slice of history that is so well designed in that it is immersive AND well researched and then sneaks in a magic realism plot line that has you guessing what is going to happen next.

The story begins after a historic storm, aptly named Black Sunday, rips through small town Uz, Nebraska. Set at the height of the very real Dust Bowl era, where droughts destroyed the crops and livelihoods of most of the midwest during the Great Depression, The Antidote offers an insanely magical yet also very real glimpse into climate devastation. Similar to Swamplandia!, The Antidote follows an exuberant young girl navigating her teenage years as an orphan, her love of basketball, her new found interest in the town’s prairie witch and her desire to understand how her mother died.

The Antidote is so unique and takes genre bending to a new extreme. I also love the not so subtle nods to a classic and infamous midwestern tale of magic. Thank you to Knopf and Netgalley for my copy; all opinions are my own.

Actual rating: 3.5 stars

The Antidote is a historical fiction novel with slight speculative elements. The story follows various characters in a small town in Nebraska called Uz. These characters include a young basketball player who has recently come to town after the death of her mother, a “Prairie Witch” who can take people’s secrets and memories and store them inside of her, a farmer, and a photographer working for a New Deal project to photograph the people of America. These are the main characters, but this story bounces between different perspectives often.

One of my favorite writing structures is when you read from various points of views and as the book goes on, you learn how all of the characters are connected. You definitely get this with The Antidote, but the story is much less about finding out about how these characters are connected and more about seeing how they come together and what happens when they do so. The Antidote is about immigration, colonialism, climate change, and so much more. Russell is able to touch on so many historical and societal issues that still have relevance to the United States today. Each character also has so much depth and backstory.

One of the things about The Antidote is that it has a lot going on. This book has a mystery/crime element, it is about basketball, romance, being a mother, racism, immigration, police misconduct, and so much more. While I think Russell does a good job of exploring all of these topics, I felt like a lot of things were left open and did not have a succinct ending. I know that some of the open-ended storylines were meant to be that way, but as I reached the end of this book I had so many questions and could not help but feel like the story wasn’t finished. This book is over 400 pages. You spend quite a lot of time with these characters. You get to know them so well. I just wish I had a more clear idea of where all of these characters were heading and how certain storylines end up after the events of the last quarter or so of the book.

If you like sweeping historical fiction novels with diverse characters, light speculative elements, and books that explore societal issues, The Antidote is a great read. While I was a little disappointed in how everything wrapped up (or didn’t really) I do not regret reading this at all. The depth of the setting and the characters and everything the author was able to explore was so purposeful and relevant. I’m so glad this book exists!

The only question I have after reading The Antidote is how many awards can one novel win because this deserves them all.
Thank you Netgalley for the ARC. My opinions are my own.

This book was a little slow at times but in the first 3/4 had so many different story lines and plot points that you just knew would be connected but you weren’t sure how which kept you interested. Then in the last quarter the author did such a great job of weaving them all together. My only complaint is that I would have loved for it to be a little bit shorter and have gotten to the point of putting the pieces together just a little bit sooner.

This book was, ultimately, fine. I was hoping for more and was expecting to be completely blown away, but that didn't happen. I loved the idea and the concept of it, and spent the first part of the book patiently waiting for the set-up to pay off, but it never felt like it did. It felt like something was always hanging just out of reach - the characters kept too much of themselves held back throughout the entire book, and when we did get moments that should have been passionate and a spark lighting into a flame, things felt rote and formal, like Russell herself couldn't find the depth to the characters.

Stylistically, Russell continues to be a writer of sentences that are beautiful without being ornate. Her prose is extremely enjoyable, though she has her moments that make my eyes glaze over. I'm not sure if that's because she loses the thread or just can't move past something, or can't describe it the way that she wants. But overall, her writing remains a strength. I liked the structure of the book - the alternating viewpoints helped to keep things moving, although it did feel like she sometimes lost momentum, particularly when switching to the Antidote, whose story action was mostly internal.

I think that the biggest struggle of the book was it's didactic nature. I'm glad that attention is being brought to the story of the Native Americans who were pushed off their lands, but at points, it felt like the novel was a sermon in a stuffy church, instead of characters changing and learning. Even the riot at the end of the book felt lacking, like the town was getting mad because they were supposed to, rather than actually being mad.

Overall, I still enjoyed it. Russell is too good of a writer that I wouldn't like it. Would I recommend it to others? Not wholeheartedly, but I probably still would.

The Antidote takes place in small town Nebraska during the Dust Bowl and is beautifully written. It is a big deeply moving story that mixes historical fiction and magical realism which I very much enjoyed and the book and story was so unique.. Karen Russell is a gifted writer and if you enjoy the historical fiction genre but also enjoy reading a book by an excellent writer, I recommend this to your.

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | for providing this book for an honest review.

This book took me forever to read. Though the writing was well done I just wasn't invested in it or excited to pick it up. There are aspects I liked such as the prairie life, the small town and the idea of the prairie witch but it was just a slow going pace for me.

Russell’s writing is lyrical and inventive, weaving together themes of memory, loss, and the haunting consequences of historical injustices. While the novel’s scope is vast, touching on environmental collapse and cultural amnesia, some readers may find the multitude of characters and plotlines a bit overwhelming. Nevertheless, The Antidote offers a unique and thought-provoking reading experience that lingers long after the final page.

I love Karen Russell's books SO MUCH and I want to read them every day, so I better start going back through the earlier ones. What a triumph of a book: storytelling master class, character master class, place setting master class. So highly recommended.

The Antidote is the "stage name" of one of the prairie witches who is paid to hold memories and secrets that people don't want to be burdened with temporarily or permanently until they're ready to extract them. Resented and distrusted for their presumed knowledge of shameful and incriminating secrets, the prairie witch is resented by the inhabitants of her town.

There's a lot of magical realism here with this cast of characters, none of whom have a path to anything other than a scrabbling existence, who are trying to figure out how to make a bleak future better.

"A blank canvas. My children deserve that. I will not pass these stories down to them. Scrape the blood away from my memory, so that they may paint with sky."

This story is many pieces of a puzzle. It's a lyrical story about people - and our will to survive. It's about having regrets and terrible moments and then deciding to "have amnesia" about it - by depositing that memory away in a prairie witch and then moving on with your life, carefree. It's about the collective amnesia of taking land that wasn't ours, the atrocities and murders that we did to do it. It's about the children that were ripped from native families, lost centuries of stories, history, and love. It's about climate change - and that we still aren't learning from what we did in the past in order to inform our future.

It's also a beautiful story about a small group in a small town that band together, fight together, to try to do something new. I loved the scarecrow, the photographer, the prairie witch, the farmer, the cat and the basketball player. They all had their piece of it all to play and I loved how they banded together. Sometimes all it takes is saying "I believe you." It was a little rough to start - there are some brutal first parts of the story (beware - animals are harmed!) but the rest of the story was engaging and interesting and the mystery of it all kept me going. I loved the photos layered throughout the story and how they helped bring this period of time alive.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an advance copy in exchange for honest feedback. Loved the way the plot built on itself throughout the book. An interesting look at what it means to have a collective memory and the choices we make to maintain it.

The Antidote weaves together the perspectives of five different characters in a struggling fictional Nebraska town during the Dust Bowl. An engaging work of historical fiction with just a touch of magic, it kept interested throughout even as I struggled to connect deeply with the characters. A worthwhile look into a particular point in American history.

Thank you Karen Russell, Knopf, and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

This is the second ever ARC that I DNF'd. The way the premise is presented when reading about the book and how the book is actually written and structured are wildly different. It's touted as magical realism historical fiction set during the Dust Bowl right when Black Sunday rolls around.

In reality, it's an extremely heavy-handed allegorical jumble. There's a "prairie witch" who can intake memories from people (like a deposit) and then can return the memory to them later. She awakens on Black Sunday to find that her "deposits" in her "bank" are gone. Yes, just like the physical banks. Why anyone would need to actually temporarily store memories is not explained and doesn't make any logical sense to me.

The town is called Uz. (Like Oz, get it?). There's a bunch of POVs, yet they all sound the same in how they're written. Everything feels like convoluted winks at the camera. Very disappointed with this one.

The Antidote is my first Karen Russel book, but not my last. I was immediately grabbed by the stunning writing and the novel magic system, such as it is. I think that this book had incredible potential.

Ultimately, I think it loses its way. The character growth felt too extreme: the Harp of the beginning of the book is nothing like the Harp of the end. This could work, but I’m not convinced it was entirely earned. I adored the message about how important it is to remember our history and the implications for today’s political climate, but found it hard to believe how easily our main characters thought they could change things. And while not the point, I found it frustrating that we spent so long on the killings without ever receiving a conclusion.

This is a major novel, I loved every second of reading it. I can't believe I haven't read any Russell before. Her prose was so fun diving into. I'm very impressed by how well she balances the rather serious parts of the plot with some fun magical realism. This balance could've easily been broken into a mess by a less skilled writer. I need to read everything she's written. Hugely recommend, this novel should win awards for 2025.

This book took me forever to read and I nearly gave up several times. I really liked that it was based around the dust bowl and I loved the idea of the prairie witch and the way this ties into society and the past. The book is told in different pov, yet there was nothing that really set these voices apart. i felt that they were too similar in dialogue and did not really differentiate on tone either. I felt that the author showed a lot of creativity in the way they wrote and how they blended genres, but I felt it was too slow paced.