I read this with my book club and we all had various opinions. 
To start the author is kind of long winded. Some of the marsh descriptions just seem to go on forever. I understand that it was part of "who Kya is" but it wasn't for me.
Number two : at one point she describes a monarch butterfly as black and yellow and my book club could not let that go. All this marsh research but couldn't be bothered to google image search a monarch butterfly. 
 Number three: 

the character development of Kya is just so unbelievable. Not the education or even writing the book, it's the random emotional intelligence she develops after years of isolation. Her brother shows up and she's just able to be emotionally vulnerable with him and tell him about her love life? That man is a stranger she hasn't seen since she was 6. Why are they talking to each other like they've both been to therapy? Even the fact that she's aware of her abandonment issues and can articulate how that makes her feel is not something you develop just because you were taught to read.