…to drown out this terrible dialogue.
But before we get to that, let’s start with the good.
Warning: this post contains ALL the spoilers!
The first half of this book is beautiful, moody, and gorgeously written. The marsh is described so lovingly, so well, and the family dynamics felt so authentic. Kya’s transition from little sister with a troubled family to nature child was described with a sort of reverence for Nature that I found compelling. Her relationship with Jumpin’ and Mabel was sweet, and her determined self-reliance was inspiring and heartbreaking. It started off so well, I thought that the next half of the book would continue that exploration: what does it mean to survive as a child in the wild? What do you become? What socialization does she miss–and does it matter? I knew there was a murder coming, because I read the back of the book, but I was hoping it would be a study of nature vs. man; “feral” vs “civilized”; laws of man vs nature, you know, that sort of thing. Either that, or the murder (and its follow up) would be murky, weird, and unruly. Like the marsh.
Boy, was I wrong about that. The second half of the book felt…well, like a completely different book. Suspension of disbelief is one thing, and each individual act of suspension sure, fine, lets’ do that, as long as you keep it grounded in something real, something I don’t have to suspend any disbelief for. I was hoping that this story would keep its grounding in the marsh and Kya’s identity. Well, it tried, I think. But let’s walk through the things that the story expects you to buy, without rolling your eyes:
This wild child, who grew up essentially alone from ages 7 to 14 – that’s 7 very important formative years!—is of course an outcast from the village, known as “the Marsh Girl.” But the description of what makes her an outcast are more “that weird quiet girl in the back of Math class” and less “child who lost her entire family and raised herself in the marsh.” Her biggest problem as an outcast was that she didn’t like groups of people, and didn’t know how to interact, and that people made fun of her and bullied her. Not, say, that she had terrible hygiene, or didn’t understand social cues, or came down with an illness she couldn’t describe or treat, or spoke an unintelligible dialect, or had, like, scurvy, or something. “Oh,” you say, “I buy that. She was close to town, she had the memory of her Ma, she had occasional interactions with people like Jumpin!” Ok, fine, suspend that disbelief. But let’s also discuss…
This wild child grows up to be, unanimously, “gorgeous,” “a looker,” a woman who, effortlessly, like a magnet, attracts both the hunky quarterback and the gentle-soul scientist, despite years of solitude, no toiletries, no socialization for 7 years, no schooling, no church, no modern amenities, despite only speaking to two people for most of her teens. Fine, I guess it’s possible (but highly unlikely!) that she won the looks lottery. I GUESS. But then we get to those two love interests…
Tate, the reading teacher, is a gentle soul, a quiet boy who loves Kya his whole life, and who only makes one misstep. His greatest point of character development is realizing that he does, in fact, love her, and was a fool for leaving her. He’s an angel who teaches her to read and leaves her feathers and gets her book published. That…is not a lot of character development. He’s just too good to be true. But that’s fine, I think my husband’s too good to be true, so I’ll allow it. But speaking of Tate…
What are the chances that a 14 year old could teach a fellow 14 year old how to read, and not just how to read, but how to read so well that she’s reading Biology textbooks and Einstein’s theories and Daphne du Maurier? I read a book a week and I haven’t read du Maurier! But fine, perhaps she just had so much time, and was so isolated in that shack, and so smart, and so engaged, that she threw herself into this task and mastered the English language in a few years. That still doesn’t help us deal with…
One-dimensional Chase. A good looking rich a**hole, the star quarterback, because of course he is. Chase starts out as bad news and ends as bad news. I get it, there are plenty of Chases in the world! But what is he doing in this story? He is a cutout, a “Southern” stereotype that we’ve all read about before. You could fill in his dialogue without even reading the rest of the book. This just seemed lazy. At least make him an interesting a**hole! (Or make Kya a monster, the pontianak who eats men after nightfall. Or make her totally in tune with her basest urges, shocking and entrancing Chase with her amorality. In other words: do literally anything else besides “social-outsider-falls-for-hunky-quarterback.”) And while we’re talking about Chase…
His accent. It’s … Carolinian? Who knows! The dialogue in general is just…well it’s a stark contrast to the eloquent descriptions of the marsh and the natural world. It’s not great. But perhaps that’s on purpose? Perhaps the goofy dialogue was *supposed* to contrast with the quiet, complex, calm of the marsh and the seashells and Kya’s internal life. I doubt it, but I guess that’s possible. But let’s say you’ve suspended all this disbelief, and you are ready for the ending…
THE ENDING. It would have been enough to acknowledge that she did it, and insinuate that the marsh keeps its secrets, the marsh protects its own. But the author seemed torn between letting her foreshadowing and writing speak for itself (and giving her readers a little credit, I mean COME ON) and tying up Every. Little. Loose. End. Did she need to spell out—with italics, even!—that Kya was Amanda?! Did Kya need to write a poem about killing Chase? I buy that she kept the shell necklace, but I don’t buy the rest. And while we’re at it…
I love that Kya was in fact guilty. This was not a surprise, guys! Of course she did it! He was in her territory, he was a jerk, and there was SERIOUS foreshadowing: the praying mantis, the lightning bug, eating their mates. The wild child following the rules of nature rather than man. This is the story I wanted to read! But instead I got a YA love triangle, a court case that took place in Carolina-via-Mayberry, and Kya as a meticulous killer who apparently boarded a bus with one or two disguises in a cardboard suitcase? I mean, what?! Pick a lane. And while we’re talking about the ending…
Why the whole poetry thing? I don’t get it. Was it meant to show how connected she felt to language? Or how much she wanted to be a part of society, but could only do it by correspondence? As Tate himself said, the poetry wasn’t even that good! The insertion (of both the poetry theme and the poems themselves) was clunky (“Kya recited a poem by her favorite poet…”) when it would have more than sufficed to just put a few lines in here and there, if any.
This is the story I wanted: The sheriffs do what they do, but we don’t get to hear all their dialogue: we hear about their searches in the marsh, the way the owls watch them, their inability to find anything damning, or even to find their way after sunset—because they are not marsh people. The court case, the rubberneckers, the bereaved family, is described as a stark contrast to the marsh: laws of man v. nature. There is a deep suspicion of Kya, but no damning evidence: we don’t hear anyone’s arguments or closing cases. Kya did it, of course, but she did it with the stealth and primal urges of a hungry heron, or a praying mantis, not a meticulous, big-city murderer—she succeeded because she is the marsh, and Chase (and the others) aren’t. They don’t appreciate it, they don’t understand it, and they ignore Nature at their peril. The book reckons with that, and however the court case goes, Tate and Kya love each other from a distance. Proximity is hard: she is too wild, she is too unknowable. Optional: upon her death, many years later, Tate finds the shell necklace. There is no nom-de-plume poetry. There is only a house full of her collections, specimens, and paintings. Tate turns those collections into the books that she becomes known for posthumously. Fin.
Tl;dr: I bet the movie will be better.