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A review by jenibus
The Marsh King's Daughter by Karen Dionne
4.0
The Marsh King's Daughter flew by, I literally was surprised to realize I had only an hour left in the audiobook when I reached that point. The story moves at a breakneck speed, barely giving pause for the reader to catch their breath and realize the implications of what is happening. This is both good and bad. It certainly kept me engaged, kept me turning the pages (metaphorically since audiobook), but there certainly were times I wished we had time to reflect on the consequences of Helena's childhood circumstances.
Helena is the daughter of a woman who was abducted at age 14 and her abductor. Raised in the swampy marshlands of Michigan, Helena was more a child of the wilderness than of people. She kills her first deer at 7, she knows how to track the smallest movements in the marsh, can take down a bear and shoot with precise accuracy. At 12 she and her mother escaped her father's captivity and now an adult, Helena has tried to put her childhood entirely behind her, keeping the details of it hidden from her husband and their two daughters. But Helena's father has escaped from prison and is hiding out in the marshlands once more, and Helena might be the only person who can find him before he finds her.
Like I said, the book is quite good and super fast-paced, but that's somewhat to its detriment. The parts of the book I found most compelling were Helena's personal relationships with characters who WEREN'T her father. Growing up not knowing the circumstances of her birth, she resented her mother who she viewed as too quiet and not fun, not understanding that she was living a prisoner of her father. After they were rescued, no one seems to want Helena around, she doesn't fit in anywhere and her grandparents only view her as her father's daughter. The small glimpses we see of Helena's relationship with her mother broke my heart and I kept finding myself wishing that more of the book was devoted to their complicated relationship. Similarly, we barely see Helena's interactions with her husband. I wish we could have seen more, seen how they fell for one another, seen portions of their discussions and arguments after he learns the truth about her upbringing.
The action was fine, and Dionne was certainly not required to write a book full of character explorations if she didn't want to, but that was what I most wanted out of the book.
Helena is the daughter of a woman who was abducted at age 14 and her abductor. Raised in the swampy marshlands of Michigan, Helena was more a child of the wilderness than of people. She kills her first deer at 7, she knows how to track the smallest movements in the marsh, can take down a bear and shoot with precise accuracy. At 12 she and her mother escaped her father's captivity and now an adult, Helena has tried to put her childhood entirely behind her, keeping the details of it hidden from her husband and their two daughters. But Helena's father has escaped from prison and is hiding out in the marshlands once more, and Helena might be the only person who can find him before he finds her.
Like I said, the book is quite good and super fast-paced, but that's somewhat to its detriment. The parts of the book I found most compelling were Helena's personal relationships with characters who WEREN'T her father. Growing up not knowing the circumstances of her birth, she resented her mother who she viewed as too quiet and not fun, not understanding that she was living a prisoner of her father. After they were rescued, no one seems to want Helena around, she doesn't fit in anywhere and her grandparents only view her as her father's daughter. The small glimpses we see of Helena's relationship with her mother broke my heart and I kept finding myself wishing that more of the book was devoted to their complicated relationship. Similarly, we barely see Helena's interactions with her husband. I wish we could have seen more, seen how they fell for one another, seen portions of their discussions and arguments after he learns the truth about her upbringing.
The action was fine, and Dionne was certainly not required to write a book full of character explorations if she didn't want to, but that was what I most wanted out of the book.