Ratings30
Average rating3.3
New York Times Bestseller | Pulitzer Prize Finalist "Ms. Russell is one in a million. . . . A suspensfuly, deeply haunted book."--The New York Times Thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree has lived her entire life at Swamplandia!, her family’s island home and gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades. But when illness fells Ava’s mother, the park’s indomitable headliner, the family is plunged into chaos; her father withdraws, her sister falls in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, defects to a rival park called The World of Darkness. As Ava sets out on a mission through the magical swamps to save them all, we are drawn into a lush and bravely imagined debut that takes us to the shimmering edge of reality.
Reviews with the most likes.
When I was living in Seattle this book was everywhere and I never read it. Now I finally have!
There were some things that didn't jive for me so I have to go with a three ... specifically as another reviewer said there's a very bad thing that happens late in the book that for me seems a little too “randomly planned.” You see that it's going to happen but you don't really know why or how it advances the book.
Messy. The narrative got really messy at points. But the writing is seriously amazing, enough so to make me forgive the inconsistencies and the multiple narrative voices.