Intro

I finally did it. After hearing my wife describe how much she enjoyed this book, I finally took the time to read it myself, and it was just as good as she said it was going to be. This wasn’t the kind of book that I usually read as I tend to go more for fantasy novels than that are mysteries or coming of age novels. Even though this wasn’t a book that I would normally read, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

As I mentioned in my last book review on book one of the Wingfeather Saga, I don’t typically like watching the movie for something if I haven’t read the book first. Rachel has been excited for months about the fact that this book was being turned into a movie, so I had to read the book before we went and saw the movie together.

Summary – Contains Spoilers

This book is a coming of age story of Kya, a young girl who lives in the marsh. She lives out in the marsh with her family, but slowly, one by one, the size of her family is reduced until she is the only one left. She then has to learn how to make the money that she needs to survive while not having anyone else around.

Over time, she learns how to make a decent living by selling oysters and smoke fish. This plus the generosity of a few townspeople meant that she was able to continue living and not starve to death. Of course, many were worried that she shouldn’t be out there by herself, and even the truant officer comes looking for her, trying to get her to go to school. Kya only lasts one day at school before she decides that she is never going back.

Whenever someone comes close to her shack, she runs and hides so that she won’t be found. This goes on for a while until a boy named Tate decides that he wants to do something nice for her. Every now and then, he places a feather on a stump in the woods for her to find. These are all added to her extensive collection of all the different species of birds. She gets a thrill out of going to the stump to try to find a new feather, but still she is cautious and doesn’t want to be seen.

Eventually, they meet in the woods and begin to develop a deeper relationship beyond just the giving of flowers. It is Tate who takes the time to teach her how to read, and then he brings her various books for her to read. Over time, these books allow her to become truly an expert on the Marsh and she educates herself to a high level.

This relationship doesn’t last forever though, and Tate has to go off to college leaving Kya heartbroken. She doesn’t develop another relationship for years until she happens to run into Chase Andrews, the star quarterback of the town. Their relationship progresses quickly and they even begin to discuss the possibilities of marriage. This gets Kya’s hopes up to where she thinks that this is possible. In the end, it turns out that Chase only wants her to be able to brag to his friends that he was able to bed the Marsh Girl.

They continue to be involved with each other until she discovers that he is married to another woman. This breaks her heart again, and she becomes even more guarded than before seeing as how every time she has built a relationship with someone, they end up leaving.

Tate comes back and takes a few items from her collection to take to a publisher who wants to turn all of her items into a book. Shortly thereafter, her book is published and she gets an advance which is the largest amount of money that she has ever seen. This allows her to fix up the shack that she was living in and buy the land so that she owns it.

One day, Chase is found dead at the base of the fire tower. The blame then goes to Kya who is arrested for his murder. A large part of the story then follows her trial as she has to deal with the court room dealings.

The rest of the story is for you to read. If I revealed anymore this would be far too full of spoilers.

Review

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and would recommend it to others. One caveat, this book does deal with some very sensitive topics and would not be suitable for kids. However, these topics help to make the world of the book seem more real, and help to develop the story better.

While not the cleanest book I have ever read, it did have captivating characters and an intriguing storyline. This book was also well researched in identifying the different creatures of the marsh. As someone who enjoys being in nature and always finding a fascination with things both small and large, hearing the detailed descriptions of everything that lived in the marsh made the book more interesting.

Is the book worth the hype that it is currently experiencing, I think so. I really enjoyed it.

Have you read this book? What did you think about it? Please let me know in the comments below.