I was blown away by this heartbreaking yet beautiful coming of age story of young Leah Payne who is a free spirited full of wonder and optimism despite the countless obstacles against her. Set in the 1930s and during a lesser known part of North Carolina’s history, where an unimaginable state eugenics board has been formed. What Leah has to endure is gut wrenching and so tragic yet I came away from this book with such a sense of hope because of her strengths she shows.

Be sure to check out this remarkable book when it’s out later this month! Thank you Source Books for the advanced copy of The Last Carolina Girl!

I've read a few emotional books in my time. Some that really kept me weeping all the way through. This is one of them. This is emotional on a whole new level though. I learned a few things while reading this book. A few things that we all should know and prevent from ever happening again.

This is fourteen year old Leah Payne's story. It's told with her voice. Her thoughts and her feelings. Her pain. Her losses. Her heart. It will absolutely break your heart. The sad thing is that this happened in this country. Way to many times. I thought other countries were bad trying to create the perfect race. While this is not in so many words about creating the perfect race, according to the people who did this, it actually is. Using Eugenics to keep anyone from having a child. To sterilize women. To sterilize a child. It is beyond cruel. It's inhumane. No one has the right to decide who is not smart enough to have a child. Who is not good enough. It's just wrong on so many levels. This book will take you there and many more places.

Leah was living her life with her daddy in North Carolina. Going about her daily life happy and content. While they were basically poor they did have a lot. They had each other. They had a roof over their heads and her daddy had a job. Yes they lived on the Barnas' property but Leah's daddy worked for them. She played with their son Jesse. Went to school with him. He was her best friend. Her mother died after she gave birth to her. She bled to death. Her daddy raised her and taught her to be a good child but also let her experience freedom. Be alive and happy. Until the unthinkable happened. Then she had to go live with a foster family. But she didn't have any idea what she was in store for. Being a "helpmate" instead of a typical foster child. The Griffins were a typical family. They had money and a nice life. Three children and a home. Plenty of food and each other.

Leah goes through so much from Mrs Griffin. The woman is cruel. Evil mean. She puts Leah in what can only be described as a closet out back with room only for a bed and dresser. One tiny window. All Leah is there for is to cook, clean and help with the youngest child. Leah is a hard worker and only wants a family. To be accepted. She also wants to go back home. She puts up with physical and mental abuse from Mrs Griffin. While the other children seem to love her, especially the youngest, Leah is not at all happy. She tries so hard to please this woman. The final straw comes when she over hears Mrs Griffin and another snooty woman taking at the cotillion. She finds out that the woman her her sterilized.

This story takes you on a very emotional ride. Through so many tears. The things this teenage girl goes through is so sad. What makes it worse is it is based on an actual event. This author's aunt. You will learn about her in the "Author's Note" at the end. It's heartbreaking what happened and in some cases it seems still happens. This book is well researched so don't think it's not real. That it never happened. It did. It needs to never happen again. No matter what.

Quotes that hit me:
'ALL I HAD LEFT IN ALL THE WORLD WAS MY QUILT AND THE PICTURE I'D TAKEN FROM THE DRESSER BEFORE WE'D WALKED OUT THE DOOR THAT MORNING.'

'THE THING ABOUT KIDS. ADULTS ALWAYS TRY TO TELL THEM TO GROW UP, ACT THEIR AGE, THAT THERE'S NO SENSE IN CRYING. BUT KIDS KNOW THAT SOMETIMES THE ONLY THING TO DO IS LET THE TEARS WASH OUT OF YOU. SOMETIMES TEARS ARE THE ONLY WORDS WORTH SHARING."

Yes, this is a very emotional story. It does have a couple of very sweet parts and a couple of chuckles but overall it's based on actual events and it's heartbreaking. It's horrible. It's one you need to read.

Publishes March 28th of this year.

Thank you #NetGalley, #MeaganChurch, #SourceBooksLandmark, for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this story.

Five huge stars and a very high recommendation. Read it with a new box of Kleenex. You will need them.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for this eARC.

The Last Carolina Girl was so beautiful and heartbreaking.

Sometimes it's the story and sometimes the characters and this time it was both. My heart ached for Leah. But Mary Ann's innocence had my ♥
Im the beginning, I found the book to be a bit slow but it soon picked up pace and I didn't want to put it down.

What a heartbreaking and touching novel. This story taught me something I knew next to nothing about.

Set in 1930’s North Carolina, Lea is orphaned and sent to live with a family. The circumstances of her being sent broke my heart and the woman of the family’s treatment of Lea angered me so many times. As the story progressed, I loved her interaction with the children of the family and kept hoping things would turn around.

I had heard of the eugenics movement but didn’t realize how big of a movement it was and the flimsy reasons people could use to have someone sterilized without their consent. My heart broke for Lea and all she went through and endured.

Without giving anything away, I will say the ending was beautiful in its own way. To watch Lea endure and never give up the hope of what she wanted most was inspiring.

I cannot wait to see what Meagan Church writes next. This debut novel was very well done. I highly recommend reading the author’s note at the end to learn more about the inspiration for this story.

Thank you to Sourcebooks for the copy of this book. All views are my opinion.

Often compared to Where the Crawdads Sing, Meagan Church's debut novel, The Last Carolina Girl, is a better written and far more believable story. Like Crawdads, the main protagonist is a young orphaned girl from coastal North Carolina but that is where the comparisons stop. Ms. Church places her story against the controversial backdrop of the 1930s eugenics movement. Heartbreaking and highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for this ARC. Review is my own.

Meagan Church’s “The Last Carolina Girl” was a wild card read for me and I wasn’t altogether sure what to expect. What ensued was a powerful, gut-wrenching story of one woman’s fight for her freedom, for control of her body and for a shot at her dreams.

Leah’s story is set against a coastal Carolina setting in the 1930s. My favorite historical fiction books are ones where I learn something about the past I was previously unaware of and in The Last Carolina Girl, Church exposes the very real horrors of the state eugenics board. Why I had little to no context of this horrendous element to our country’s history is beyond me. What Leah endured was at times almost too painful to read (and how apt her last name is Payne). She is a character representing so many who had to endure this abuse with their bodily freedoms literally ripped away from them at the hands of a classist, patriarchal society.

This writing is simple and there is a level of complexity that feels missing from the plot. What Leah endured in the loss of her family, body and freedom is heart-wrenching, but the ease to which the story ended after the major revelation made it seem like a lot of tragedy could’ve been avoided. I guess what I’m saying is the ending felt too easy.

Readers will champion young Leah as she refuses to bend to the will of her abusive foster family and holds true to her fierce spirit despite all the tragedy. Overall this was an unexpected treasure that I’m very grateful to have stumbled upon. Hard, powerful and loaded with themes of family, rights, identity and perseverance, The Last Carolina Girl is a beautiful story about a girl with a spirit that won’t be broken.

Oooh Eee, this was a rollercoaster ride of emotions. It’s heartbreaking and infuriating but also inspiring and touching.

I wanted to scoop Leah up and bring her home with me. She is such a wonderful character that deserves the world but instead she gets sh!t on after experiencing so much heartache already.

Mrs. Griffin I wanted to kick in the face, I hated her so much! She is an awful, horrible lady and I hope a bird poops on her face.

I absolutely loved the friendship between Jesse and Leah. He is the one glimmer of light and hope in her life and I was all about it!

ɪ ʀᴇᴄᴏᴍᴍᴇɴᴅ ᴛʜɪs ᴛᴏ ↠ Those who loved the wild spirit of Kya in Where the Crawdads Sing.

This was a coming of age story of a young girl who is torn from everything she knows and loves after her father dies in a tragic accident, to go live with a foster family, in what she thought would be a new start with a new family. Instead of being part of a new family, she learns she was brought in to be a helpmate, not one of the family. She’s treated terribly, learns about some deep dark family secret, and has the right to become a mom in the future literally ripped away from her due to some unimaginable yet based on an all too real part of history, Eugenics program. This story will break your heart and put it back together piece by piece. It’s a beautiful and heart wrenching story of family, love, and strength and what it really means to call something home.

I received a copy for review from Netgalley.

At first I wasn't sure if I was going to enjoy this as the start of it really reminded my of Where the Crawdads Sing . The beginning chapters were very similar, but once you get to part two it's a very different experience. Right away with meeting the new family that Leah is staying with you can pick up on culty, radical evangelical vibes. While I understand it's the 1930's and times were very different it's still very weird to me to have a 14 year old as your hired help. From there it's a very sad and difficult story to get through. Leah is forced to basically leave school, become a helpmate to a woman, who we find out later in the story is her aunt, and is berated constantly for minor infractions (some that are caused by some kind of seizure). The whole story is sad and by the end Leah is even forced to go through a nonconsensual sterilization AT 14.

Do I recommend people read this? Sure, I think it makes a good book for discussions, especially since forced sterilization are still happening in America to this day, but I do warn that you be in the right mind-frame to handle the content.

I really liked this book, I felt the characters were well wrote and quite diverse. There were some part of the book that I felt were slow and was difficult to push through. Most of the book was steady paced

Thank you Meagan Church, SOURCEBOOKS Landmark and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC e-book. I have so many great words to say about this book it s a bit hard to know where to start. For those who loved Where the Crawdads Sing, this book has a similar feel but I actually enjoyed this book more and found it a much easier read. This story contains heartbreak ( so much heartbreak), just when you think this child can no longer be broken anymore she is broken down even tinier but her heart shines and her true character is something I wish we could all possess. Hands down this is one of the best books I have read so far this year.

The Last Carolina Girl is hauntingly beautiful and grabbed me from the first page. What happened to Leah made my own blood boil and to hear this story was inspired by a real person made my heart weep. While a complex story with a lot of moving pieces, I finished it in a single day. I simply didn’t want to put it down.

Thank you so much for access to the ARC!

It's a hard life for Leah and her father in South Carolina. When her father dies, she is forced to live with a cruel family. I greatly enjoyed the descriptions of this beautiful part of the United States, and the story is poignant and well crafted.

Leah Payne is a sweet 14-year-old girl with one dream - to live in a house on the beach when she grows up. Her mother passed away and Leah and her father live in a small cabin on a wealthy family's land. Her father works hard as a lumberjack until a fateful day involving big trees and bigger winds.

As Leah is thrust into being an orphan, her fate changes. Gone are her days of going to school and exploring the beautiful North Carolina beach and nearby forests and farms with her friend. She is sent away to live with a family, she believed as a foster child, but turns out to be a "helpmate," forced to clean and cook while the other children in the home attend school and balls.

The historical timeline of 1935 plays a large role in the story, as the process of sterilization becomes popular with the introduction of the state eugenics board. The author's note reveals Church's family history as it connects with this North Carolina history, making the story all the more touching. A heartbreaking tale of losses and inequities.

{3.5 stars}

Leah is a young girl living with her father, a lumberjack, in a small shack in rural NC. they are well below the poverty line and just get by. Leah’s circumstances are less than ideal but she has the love of her father. Until one day, he is in an accident and she is left on her own. She thinks she is about to be adopted when she comes to live with a family but quickly finds out she is to live as their servant. The adults there treat her horribly, acting as though she is much less than because of her background. I won’t say anymore, because there are some really heartbreaking things that happen to her.

I’m not sure I get as many Where the Crawdads Sing vibes as the blurb wants you to think, other than her being a girl on her own in coastal Carolina, the similarities end there. Leah is a sweet girl and your heart breaks for her. This deals with a really horrible time in America and if you haven’t read about it before, you’ll enjoy this book. But if you want a more heart wrenching story that deals with this issue, I would recommend A Mother’s Promise.

Thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark for gifted access via NetGalley. All opinions above are my own.

✨I think that I would technically give this a 3.5/5 but I’m rounding up. I was a bit of a hater going in. I think the premise originally was interesting to me but I was just expecting a where the crawdads sing 2.0 from this story but I was wrong.

✨the beginning of the story and setting are very much still where-the-crawdads-sing-esque, but after that we have a completely different story on our hands.

✨our main character leah deals with extreme loss on multiple levels. i’m trying to keep this spoiler free, but the loss really goes deep. a part of american history that is rarely discussed in fiction is brought into this story and, based on the author’s note at the end, it very close to the author personally. I think without reading that author’s note the story itself wouldn’t have the big impact that it does for me.

✨at times I felt like the main issue was glossed over, there is a twist that is revealed in the last 10% of the book and i wish there was just… more about that twist. the ending was emotional but i felt like it wrapped up too quickly. I also think that the loss that leah experiences is full of nuance in itself and those who have experienced that can still find themselves to lead full lives, though not as originally planned, but that conversation wasn’t had/an option for leah in the end I guess?

✨hopefully that’s not too open since I’m trying to be vague in order to avoid spoilers but I appreciate what this book has done. I think the part of history is important to talk about, per the author’s note it still happens today, but I wish that we were able to dive deeper into the story. maybe with more of a look into leah’s future post incident…

✨thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for allowing me to read the e-arc in exchange for my honest review!

I really loved the beginning of this book. Everything about it, her dad, Jesse, the setting, her house… it was all so charming and special. But after she moved it just all went downhill. I didn’t love where the story went and the writing seemed to be a bit scattered and like the book didn’t even know what direction to go in. Disappointing, especially because the beginning was so great.

I can't remember the last time I was so consumed by a book! I simply could not put this one down. I was immediately taken in by Leah's heart breaking story. She was a dreamer who wanted nothing more than to live by the ocean with people she loved. Learning about some of the terrifying parts of America's history is heart breaking. We need books like this to help us never forget our past so it doesn't repeat itself.

An emotional tale of a young woman who loses everything when her father dies unexpectedly but claws her way back. Leah is 14 in 1935, her mother is dead, and her life revolves around her father, their cabin, and her friend Jesse, the son of her father's employer the Barmas. She struggles in school and she has what she calls flashes, likely a form of epilepsy. And then her father is killed, her cabin is destroyed by a falling tree, and the Barmas decide she should go to the Griffin family. Life there is a shock- she's expected to be a "helper," essentially unpaid household labor, a situation which is both distressing and frightening. And then Mrs Griffin brings Dr. Foster, a proponent and practicianer of eugenics home. You will root for Leah, who is desperate to escape and return to Jesse. There's a big secret here which I didn't guess as well as (to be honest) one unanswered question about the Griffin family. Church is a good storyteller who pulls you into Leah's world, both as she places shells around her parents' graves and as she toils at the Griffins. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. It's a very good read and don't miss the afterword.

Thankfully, if you're like me and found a million things wrong and not likable about "Where the Crawdads Sing," this book is not that one.

The plot line of this was believable - heartbreaking, but absolutely events that could (mostly) happen. I question the reality of a 15ish year old boy driving alone nearly 200 miles to a night at the fair, especially in 1936, but the rest of the events would be very plausible.

That being said, I felt parts of this book were rushed, while other parts felt almost too drawn out. I think more attention to the last two chapters (or just simply making the book longer) would have felt far more satisfying. The big reveal was almost underwhelming.

Despite that, it was an overall good read that I'd recommend.