I'd been staring at this book for months on my If you liked..., then you'll love... suggestions from Goodreads and Audible. And, this book came highly recommended by a professor colleague, so...I finally read it. And, from the first few pages, I was hooked.
Katherine Danielle Clark, Kya, lives a life impossibly impoverished: abandoned by her mother and older siblings, abused by her alcoholic father, starving due to lack of income, lacking any kind of formal education, left to survive on her own in the marshes of North Carolina, Kya defies the odds stacked against her survival and thrives. Kya's coming-of-age story is heightened when she is arrested and tried for the murder of Chase Andrews, the local hero, who coincidentally was Kya's lover until he, too, became abusive.
Owens creates in Kya Clark a character so at odds with society and at home with nature, so simultaneously vulnerable and strong, that I couldn't help falling in love with Kya. This abandoned and shunned precious and precocious child of the North Carolina marshland in the 1960s burrowed into my heart, especially when she explains that she didn't have trouble understanding why everyone left, but only why nobody took her with them.
Owens prose is lyrical, possibly the most beautiful writing I have seen in some time, and Kya's ability to be completely in tune with nature and out of tune with human society is captivating. And, Owens delivers a poetically just ending for Kya that left me cheering and pondering the meaning of justice.
If you're looking for a beautiful, rich, unexpected story, this one will not disappoint.
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