Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Our book club selected this book, so I read it. I do not recommend it unless you like books that pander to women's fantasies of being "wild and free" but also married to a protective, perfect mensch of a man. Some parts of it are well-written, but the "dialect" writing is cringe-producing. It's clear that the author has never heard a real Southerner speak: she sort of fused Appalachian dialect with low-country dialect in a way that makes no sense and is a bit insulting to Southerners of all races. It has to be noted that the murder mystery at the heart of the book does keep the plot moving. But the plot is also pretty predictable and has the usual structure of a romance novel: girl meets boy in childhood; falls in love with boy as a teen; boy leaves girl; girl meets bad boy; good boy comes back; then girl has to choose between "sensible" relationship with stable good boy or wild, irrational relationship with sexy bad boy. If you like this sort of thing, just buy a bodice ripper! Also it goes without saying that the protagonist girl is of course beautiful and even gorgeous, although she grew up alone eating only grits for years, not a recipe for the body beautiful. Other reviewers have noticed the lack of plausibility in the plot: that a girl child could survive in a swamp alone at age seven, then learn to read and become a kind of biology savant. But this is part of the fantasy! You can be wild and free like Pippi Longstocking with no parents, but also literate and even make money writing! And never have a job or kids, and be married to a really great guy! It bothers me that this book was a best-seller. While one in four Norwegians read "My STruggle" by Karl Ove Knausgaard, a book that counts as real literature, we Americans are reading what is essentially sexy Young Adult Fiction. We can do better.