First published 2011
Ava Bigtree lives on a Florida Everglades island where her family runs Swamplandia, an alligator wrestling theme park that once dominated the region. Everything falls apart when her mother, the star performer, dies. The World of Darkness, a slick new competitor, steals their customers. Her sister Ossie becomes obsessed with the Dredgeman, a ghostly figure she claims to love. Her brilliant brother Kiwi abandons the family to work for their rivals, hoping to save the business from bankruptcy. Chief Bigtree, her father, disappears entirely. Ava finds herself alone with ninety-eight alligators and the weight of keeping everything together. At thirteen, she must navigate not only the dangerous swampland around her but also the bewildering territory of loss and responsibility. The Everglades become both her prison and her testing ground as she struggles to hold onto what remains of her fractured family.
Genres: american-fiction, adventure, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, found-family
Setting: Florida Everglades
Period: 21st Century
315 pages · Hardcover · Knopf
Content warnings: death