«Kya laid her hand upon the breathing, wet earth, and the marsh became her mother.»

Set in a beautifully atmospheric marshland, this novel tackles the painfully isolated and alienated coming-of-age story of Kya. I was instantly moved by this young girl’s connection to nature, and as the quote above expresses, her character embodies a necessity to seek out parental comfort in her physical surroundings rather than in people, who are all fleeting. Over the course of the novel, Kya doesn’t necessarily adapt to the society around her, but rather gradually let’s bits of the world into her home, the marsh.

The nature descriptions were wonderful, and I adored the representation of taxonomic biology. I also thought it was a cool move to tie in biological examples of reproductive strategies to the dilemmas of the plot; this contributed to the impression that Kya thinks about interpersonal relationships in a «wild» and seemingly primitive way, but instead of this being derived from her unconventional lifestyle in the marsh, the mindset is rather the result of her diligent, intellectual participation in natural studies. I thought this made a clever contrast, also tying into the thematics of xenophobia and discrimination.

Now I’m quite interested in seeing the movie adaptation, especially intrigued about Daisy Jessica Edgar-Jones starring as Kya.