Rita has lost her father, so the main themes are grief and healing. Through her art, she comes to terms with death as inseparable from life and something we should learn to accept and live with. I liked the structure. A description of one of her paintings opens each chapter, followed by the event she was inspired by. She is mixed and estranged from the non-white part of her family. She desperately seeks a connection to her indigenous background and resents her mother for keeping her away from it. 

There was also commentary on climate change, colonisation, and toxic relationships.

I did not enjoy the writing. It was complicated, sometimes hard to follow, and a few sentences required a reread. But it worked well to paint the swamp’s gloomy atmosphere: untamed, muddy, and uncomfortable and the fact we don’t know whether what happened on the retreat was real or not.

I loved the themes and Rita’s journey to acceptance, but the writing took me out of the experience.

Thanks to Netgalley and Stelliform Press for the e-ARC! The novella was released on October 31st.