At its core, this debut novel is about home, and that home isn't the four walls we surround ourselves with, but rather how and where we can be our true selves. Set in 1935 in coastal North Carolina, Leah is a free spirited 14 year old living with her lumberjack dad in a ragged cabin. When an accident kills her dad, she is forced from the people and land she loves to go live with a foster family in a city several hours away. She thinks and hopes she will be cared for and loved, but instead is forced to be the "helpmate" to the mother of the family. She bonds with the children, but the mother is mean to her for reasons that are later explained. Since childhood, Leah has experienced "flashes" where she spaces out for a few seconds. That's enough to make her foster mother make decisions on Leah's behalf that will affect the rest of her life. Told with poignancy and vivid descriptions, fans of Where the Crawdads Sing will love this book! Be sure to read the author's notes - this is based on her great-aunt's story - something she was unaware of until after her passing. A great debut - looking forward to reading more from this author! Thanks to Netgalley for a chance to read this one; all comments are my own.

The Last Carolina Girl is a beautifully written and emotionally resonant novel. Meagan Church does an excellent job of bringing Leah's story to life. The characters are well-developed and believable, and the plot is engaging and suspenseful. The novel explores themes of family, loss, love, and hope, and it will stay with you long after you finish reading it.

I highly recommend The Last Carolina Girl to anyone who enjoys historical fiction, women's fiction, or coming-of-age stories. It is a powerful and moving novel that will stay with you long after you finish reading it.

Here are some of the things that I loved about the book:

1. The characters are well-developed and believable. I felt like I got to know Leah Payne as a person, and I cared about her deeply.
2. The plot is engaging and suspenseful. I couldn't put the book down!
3. The book explores themes of family, loss, love, and hope in a way that is both heartwarming and heartbreaking.
4. The writing is beautiful and evocative. I felt like I was transported to 1935 North Carolina while I was reading the book.

Overall, I thought The Last Carolina Girl was a fantastic book. It is a powerful and moving story that I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys historical fiction, women's fiction, or coming-of-age stories.

This was a beautiful story that reminded me of Where the Crawdads Sing many times. With that being one of my favourite books of all time, that says something. A recommendation!

A heartbreaking and powerful debut!! This book is set in 1935 and inspired by true events. A beautifully written coming-of age-story that brings to light forced sterilization, specifically under the Eugenics board of North Carolina. It explores themes of family, found family, loss, grief and friendship. Furthermore, it is about finding resilience and strength after the unthinkable, making our own path and the places and people we call home.

This book has a cast of dynamic and nuanced characters. Leah Payne is an unforgettable main character that I’ve found myself thinking about long after reading this book. Before reading this, I wasn’t aware that forced sterilization that took place in the USA! I don’t remember this being mentioned in school. Rather, eugenics was talked about when we learned about Hitler and Nazi Germany. So I appreciate that this is being given a voice. This is an emotional ride. I cried at the end and cried even more when I read the author’s note detailing what inspired this story. The Last Carolina Girl has my whole heart!

If you liked Where the Crawdads Sing and The Girls in the Stilt House, this is the book for you! Church is an author to watch and I will definitely be reading whatever she writes next!

Thank you Netgalley, Sourcebooks Landmark and Meagan Church for the opportunity to read and review this absolute gem!

The Last Carolina Girl follows Leah, whose life was recently upended with the death of her father and placement into a foster home.

Overall, The Last Carolina Girl was a very engaging, fast-paced historical fiction read. I was very intrigued by the overall premise, which is why I requested this one even though historical fiction isn't my go-to genre.

The story was very well-written and emotional - I teared up many times throughout the book. and it also covers a very serious/important topic that folks should know more about. I also really enjoyed the author's note at the end of the book - it explains the author's personal reasons for writing this book. Very powerful.

My one critique is that one of the main plot points appeared to be very rushed toward the end of the book - I thought it was going to be more focused on throughout the book but seemed almost an afterthought.

Thank you Netgalley and Sourcebooks for the gifted copy in exchange for an honest review

When a girl is orphaned her world collapses. She is finally sent to a home where she hopes to be accepted only to have her world collapse even more.
Old rivalries. Petty grudges. The personal embodiment of the saying “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
She is punished for choices her parents made that other family members didn’t agree with. She was physically scarred by someone looking for revenge.
Thankfully her neighbors from before come to her rescue. They all realize that they are more than neighbors, they are family. And when you find your true family you get your happy ending and find your place in the world.
This book had me hooked from page one. It was a phenomenal read about a history that the US tries to forget about.

Whenever I read books like this, they are incredibly sad and disheartening.
However, that should not deter a reader from reading it. Found within the fiction are true facts.
Leah becomes an orphan and is sent to live with another family, who are actually relatives, although she is unaware.
A procedure is done without her consent that forever changes her life.
I liked the author’s end nite which detailed the inspiration for the story.

I really enjoyed Leah's story and could feel the heartbreak. I thought this would be a 4 star book up until about the last 50-100 pages. It tied up neatly, but I also had more questions. The use of eugenics in the book was interesting, but wished it would have addressed it more. Overall, it was a good read, but not great.

My thoughts: This book gave me immediate where the crawdads sing vibes, and lasted throughout the book! I actually really liked the story in this one, a bit more then Crawdads, as it was set in the 1930's and based on actual events here in the states that I had no idea actually happened, the eugenics movement (Google it! Its horrifying! Does anyone remember reading this in school? or is this more of the US covering up their disgusting history in school text books? Didn't see that coming! I'm jk! sort of...) ANYWAY! this book will punch you in all the feels, it's a powerful and heartbreaking read that will stick with me a very long time! Thank you so much to @sourcebooks for including me in this ARC team!

I give The Last Carolina Girl by Meagan Church ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Church’s writing is so descriptive, filled with depth and emotions. Leah’s story is tragic, but she continues to see the good in everything. I didn’t know much about the eugenics movement in the US but the Author’s note at the end was eye-opening.. I was shocked to find Hitler used the movement in America as his prototype for his cleansing of the races. I highly recommend this book. #TheLastCarolinaGirl

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Net Galley for an ARC of this book. This book broke my heart. It was a little slow until I became attached to the main character, If you start it, keep going, it's worth it. Leah. If you like character driven stories with underlying secrets then this is a story for you. This a coming of age story. It touched on eugenics. Leah was a brave, strong, and courageous girl. The writing was beautiful. I felt like I was right there with Leah in NC. I loved the way she loved nature and how important it was to the story.

I was a little bit worried that this was going to be another "Where the Crawdads sing" but this was definitely it's own book and honestly with a much less sketchy author so that's always a plus! A great bunch of characters and some heartfelt moments!

Thank you to netgalley for providing me with an arc for an honest review!

Definitely for fans of Where The Crawdads Sing. I loved this book so much and I appreciated the setting of the book as a Carolina girl.

This was a lovely read that reminded me of Where the Crawdads sing. As an east coast girl, I love reading anything that takes place is the Carolinas. This story was heartbreaking and raw in all the best ways.

A heartbreaking story of a girl who's choices no longer are her own after a devastating loss. Torn from the family she has only known in a place that holds so much near and dear. The story of a girl becoming a women who's loss is so profound in each page and my heart breaks for her. A gripping read on how families navigate through life and how the choices we make or don't make ripple through familes for many generations.

3.5 stars. This was mostly good, but didn't quite love up to its potential. I'm a NC girl and had to read this advanced reader's copy for that reason alone. There is no way NOT to sympathize with the main character. She just can't catch a break, from birth to the end of the book. There's enough small, happy scraps to keep you hanging on in hope, but overall it's pretty depressing and frustrating.
Almost every character is 2 dimensional. The eugenics stuff is thrown in there but really with no good context or grounding. It's just odd and the way that it is used as a way to hurt the main character is confusing -- because I still don't understand the real reasoning except to punish her for her long dead mother's life choices.
The ending was tied up neatly, but a bit boring and predictable.
I would give this author another chance since this was a debut.

Loved the eugenics part of the book but felt the beginning was too slow. Wish the book had more of the eugenics in it.

I haven’t read too many historical fictions, but I really enjoyed this one! The writing was amazing to me and I loved the entire storyline. It was different than my usual reads and it got me out of my reading slump. Definitely need to read more of this author’s work.

3 distant and predictable stars

From the publisher: “When an accident takes her father's life, fourteen-year-old Leah is wrenched from her small community and cast into a family of strangers. Separated from her only home, Leah is kept apart from the family and forced to act as a helpmate. When a moment of violence and prejudice thrusts Leah into the center of the state's shameful darkness, she must fight for her own future against a world that doesn't always value the wild spirit of a Carolina girl.”

“I can tell my story. I tell it as if relaying the account of someone else, not someone I know too well cause then there’s emotions that want to get involved.” Unfortunately, everything felt very surface to this reader, and I did not relate to any of the characters. The author tends to do more telling of the story from a distance, and not enough experiencing and feeling emotions. Secondary characters are stereotyped as either very good or very bad. The evil Mrs. Griffin, who takes Leah in as an unpaid servant, is just mean and nasty. Her youngest child, often the brunt of her cruelty remains a sweet soul. No subtlety here. There is even a bit of a Cinderella element with a ball where Leah must serve the other debutantes punch while wearing a hand-me-down dress.

The narration by Susan Bennett really made the story come alive. Characters were easy to differentiate. The slight Southern drawl was easy to understand and coaxed the story along.

Don’t skip the excellent Author’s Notes. (They were not included in the ARC audiobook.) Church shares how her aunt inspired her to write the story. She presents some fascinating history of the American eugenics movement and forced sterilization.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

In 1935, Leah’s lumberjack father died during a logging accident—her mother passed away when Leah was born. Suddenly without parents and homeless, Leah is forced to leave the wild yet peaceful coastal Carolina town to live with strangers in the city - the Griffins, a wealthy family with a terrible secret. Here, at the age of 14, she’s forced to be a helpmate instead of a member of the family. But as secrets come to light, Leah must fight for her own future.

I enjoyed Leah’s coming-of-age story. Her love for nature is her one constant as she loses everything: her family, her home, her friends, her pet, her education. Yet, her spirit will not break. Leah constantly strives to be part of her new surroundings even though she deeply longs for home: the ocean. I appreciate the historical thread of eugenics woven into the last part of the story, but I wish eugenics history played a more prominent role. Also, I would have loved Leah’s journey even more if the book was longer, experiencing more of Leah’s perseverance rather than simply an epilogue as a sneak peek into Leah’s future.

Meagan Church is a talented writer. Leah is a well-developed character, and the vivid setting descriptions fill my imagination. Don’t miss the author’s note which includes her inspiration, research, and eugenics data. I might even suggest reading it first. I recommend this book, especially to book clubs who enjoy historical fiction, since there’s a wealth of discussion material!