I liked this book. The whole time I was reading it I thought "yeah, it's good... it's not great though". So probably 3 stars. The amount of suspension of disbelief asked of the reader was ALMOST more than I was willing to bear. I mean, come on, truthfully, it was VERY unbelievable that a little girl would be able to live alone in the marshland. It was unbelievable that the town folk, the CHURCHES, the STATE would turn a blind eye to this little girl's well being for year after year. I mean, at least they could have dropped off some food, some supplies, whatever. Then when she learned how to read, draw, paint, author books, boat motor never broke down, house never needed dire repairs etc... was almost laughable to the point of ruining the whole thing.

But

I love nature. When I first went to college I was a biology major because I wanted to work for the national park system as a park naturalist. I love birds and wildlife, the flora and fauna of different regions, ecology, taxonomy all that. I can fully believe, since she had nothing else in here life to draw away her attention, the girl Kya fixating on the natural world and studying it closely. I mean her life depended upon it. So I DID like that part of the book a lot and hence my wanting to rate it 3 stars instead of the 2 that all that suspension of disbelief warranted.

But then again, I really liked the ending. I love the thought of making a life apart from the mainstream, quiet contemplation surrounded by nature. and then the very ending, the poem that explains it all, took me by surprise and was just perfect really so I bumped my rating up to 4 stars.

Now some people who are local to that area in North Carolina have issues with the dialect, the nearby cities and towns, etc. and that IS a legitimate gripe to have. Nothing pulls me out of a story quicker than these kinds of flaws of a thing or place that I am well familiar with. Like, author, do your damn homework! But being that I've never been to North Carolina, I was able to just go with the story without being slammed with the inconsistancies or falsehoods of setting.

So, yeah, I enjoyed it because it appealed to my particular personality and obviously my ignorance too. I can see how people could have trouble with this, but for me it worked.