Summary: A young girl survives on her own in the swamps, rejected by both family and society.
Rating & Recommendation: 5/5; recommend for the outcasts and the shunned
Review: Why didn’t I read this sooner? It’s a near perfect book. The narration is beautiful, the story compelling, the characters flawed, but relatable. Together, these things make for a gripping examination of human. The main character - Kya - lives a life defined by rejection and abandonment. Deep in a swamp, surrounded by nothing but the earth, her isolation makes her a pariah.
As a reader, you carry her loneliness with you, feeling how far she’s been pushed to the fringe. By being removed from society, she is removed from their social contracts, and she acts accordingly. The townspeople consider her wild and dangerous, gossiping about her nature, her character. But is she wild, or simply free to be as we truly are? Together, as a people, we agree to a series of contracts in order to promote peace. We’ll neither steal nor kill. We’ll be polite, wait our turn, share in bounty and support in scarcity. Removed from civilization, though, our priority becomes survival. On the fringe, we work to live, to survive, to answer our most animal instincts.
“Biology sees right and wrong as the same color in different light.”
The fact is that some of the worst things - violence, loss, revenge - are natural. They’re only wrong in the context of morality, which is a construct built for society. Morality is distinctly human, and wholly against our nature. When you remove yourself from society, when your isolation is so total and complete, what context is there by which to judge your behavior? You’ll wade through the tides of Kya’s life, through the ridicule she endures, the hope she dares to feel, the devastation she encounters over and over again. You’ll feel rage at her accusers and shame that you’ve likely done to someone what they’ve done to her. Because it’s human nature. It ends as only this story could have, and I found myself surprised, then pleased. I was gently guided to this conclusion, but had missed the road signs all along, too focused on Kya’s pain. I loved this book.
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