The Murk

by Robert Lettrick

In the Okefenokee Swamp grows a rare and beautiful flower with a power unlike any other. Many have tried to claim it - no one has come out alive. But fourteen-year-old Piper Canfield is desperate, and this flower may be her only chance to keep a promise she made a long time ago.

Accompanied by her little brother Creeper, her friend Tad, and two local guides, Piper embarks on the quest of a lifetime. But there's a deadly predator lurking unseen in the black water, one nearly as old as the Oke itself. Some say it's a monster. Others say an evil spirit. The truth is far more terrifying.

Piper's task is simple: find the flower . . . or die trying.

Genres: Horror, Middle Grade, Thriller, Childrens, Fantasy, Novels, Young Adult

310 pages, Paperback

First published April 21, 2015

Reviews

[Dear Faye · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let me tell you right now that I tried so hard to like this book and find something positive about it. I read on, trudged and plowed and crawled to the finish line, mustering enough will power and strength to get me to the end, but... I just couldn't, guys. I couldn't do it anymore.

I DNFed at 75%. 

You're probably thinking, "Faye, seriously? You had to DNF when you merely only had a quarter of the book left unread?!"

And I understand why you would think that way, but I simply had had enough. The review copy has been sitting on my Kindle for months now, and I've been reading it on and off since I first acquired it, and every time I picked up where I left off, I felt only boredom and misery, thinking, "Gods, what happened? The first book was so awesome..."

Frenzy, the author's first book, was really amazing. It had kids going to a camp being attacked by animals that were diseased somehow. The writing was engaging, the plot fast-paced and thrilling, and the emotional attachment was there, and I cried for every character who encountered trials and even death. It was a book that held my attention from beginning to end, the book that made me see how MG Horror can be... well, horrifyingly good.

The Murk was a snoozefest. I'm sorry, but it was. This was a slow-paced book that took a while to get to the meat of the story, with characters that had little to no depth. This was supposed to feel emotional - perhaps even more emotional than Frenzy considering the reason why these kids decided to charge head-on to danger was because of a sick sister - but I felt nothing for the characters. Piper was annoying. Tad was flat. I couldn't care less about Perch. Creeper was the little guy I felt I could sympathize to, but even he wasn't engaging. I didn't really feel the conviction behind their going to the swamp, and the continuous info-dump about plants and other biology-related-what-have-you didn't leave enough room for the reader in me to connect to the characters.

And ughh. This book was also full of "notes" and "diary entries" from a Doctor Cole, which made the book even more boring. Objectively, I get the reason for using the his backstory here, but his notes were full of plant science mumbo-jumbo that I was nearly bored to death. Most of the time, I didn't really see the relevance of his writings in the overall story. They felt more like nonsensical ramblings of a scientist. Every time a chapter is done and we're given pages and excerpts from his journal, I'd groan and go, "Baaarf. Not again. NEEEXT."

In the end, taking all of these factors into consideration, I decided it was better for me not to push myself any longer and just stop reading it. Such a pity considering I really liked the author's previous book.

[JohnnyBear · Rating 4 out of 5]

8 out of 10

The Murk is a book about a fourteen-year-old named Piper, who is determined to find this rare and powerful flower that lives in the Okefenokee Swamp. People tell Piper that they shouldn't go far into the swamp, but Piper and others don't listen. Accompanying Piper on this expedition would include, her little brother, a friend named Tad, and two tour guides.



This book was really suspenseful and had a lot of mystery elements. Although I wouldn't consider this book to be as good as Frenzy, I thought this was a really well-written experience. I do think sometimes the science explanations would go on a little long, or just not be that essential to the experience of this book, but I definitely learned a lot of science trivia while reading this book.

Really terrifying. Great character writing and the book provided some great suspension. Another great book by Robert Lettrick. I'm excited to read Robert Lettrick's next project!

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading this I will never look at plants the same again. This title was chock full of action, adventure, suspense, as well as a lively cast of characters. I highly recommend this title. Especially anyone that has camping trips planned in the near future!!

[Rose]

I enjoyed "Frenzy" so much, so I can't wait to read this one.

[Dana Elmendorf · Rating 5 out of 5]

My 12yo son is a reluctant reader. To get him to read a book that's not a graphic novel is very hard. For a school book report he was able to pick a free choice book. He chose The Murk. Here is his review: "I rate the book five stars out of five stars. I liked the suspenseful moments like when the Murk grabbed Pipers brother and almost ate him. It was intense. I thought he was gonna die, but I was surprised that he escaped alive. “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” - Walt Disney. This quote is relevant because Piper was in pageants. She tried something new like going in the swamp and being brave everywhere she went. I recommend this book to readers who love nature and like suspenseful moments. One also learns about different types of plants and knowing the history behind them. If you’re a fan of that then I will believe that you will love this story."

[BookLoversLife · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gosh I'm on a roll with the review books ;) Review to come!

[Joy Kirr · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of my 7th graders told me this was a good one. WAY too outlandish for my tastes. (I did learn a lot about plants.)

[Ben]

I think the theme of this book is that a litttle problem can turn into a big one quickly

[Kennedyf froehlich · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book and I was like , dude this book should have an award !!!!!!!!! It is literally the best book in the world. I definitely loved ❤️ this book because I like the drama and the characters

[Mitchell Signor · Rating 3 out of 5]

The murk begins with the main protagonist, Tad, trying to get the one of the other protagonists, Piper's, attention. When he is turned down he consults the journal of his great great great grandfather. His great great great grandpa was a botanist, just like Tad. So when Piper's little sister develops a rare disease he tells her the tale of the silver flower. A magical flower that can cure any aliment in the world, and it resides in a near-by swamp. They travel into the swamp and find the flower with the help of their guide. They discover that the plant is gigantic, and completely focused on killing them. So they fight it and end up escaping with the flower. And all ends well, including the typical cliques, the boy getting the girl, the protagonists all surviving, etc.
"Frenzy" another book by this author is a lot more interesting throughout, keeping you on the edge of your seat the entire time, not just for a few pages at a time. This book is also lesser than other books of the same genre. Most of the classic teen thriller books have an interesting main group of characters, but these guys... are just so boring! I could barley even continue through the book. I really would rather read pretty much any other book in this genre.
Now comes the review portion of this, well, review. I gave this book 2/5 stars, and before you are outraged and become a fearsome green creature, hear me out. As I have said in the compare/contrast portion, this book is very slow on the up draw. I found myself having to take breaks in order to just keep myself interested! The main characters are oh so boring, with all of the cliques that aren't supposed to be non-ironically used! But there are some redeeming qualities of this book. There are a few background characters with interesting stories and things to say. Macey, of the boat guides, develops a side story that reveals how she came to terms with her infant baby's death. That is why this book managed to get itself a 2/5 star review.

[Julie Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh this was creepy... I liked it...

In the prologue we see Piper, the devoted sister, come face to face with a danger that threatons her baby sister Grace...

Then fast forward to a year later...Piper has changed into a pageant loving teenage girl who rarely deals with her baby sister and has abandoned her best friend Tad. But when she finds out that Grace has a life threatoning illness she sets off on a crazy hunt for a miraculous silver flower. Tad and her brother Creeper acompany her into the Okefenokee Swamp where they meet Perch and Marcy, their guides.

But something doesn't want them to get that flower and it will kill to protect it...

Some crazy, science action stuff here...bizarre, gross, wild... Yep, it was a fun ride. A bit over the top but lots of fun...

My only gripes -

Names of Perch and Piper - didn't like that they both started with P - I know, weird but I kept getting Perch and Tad mixed up.

No mention of Grace at the end...

[Brayden · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Murk, written by Robert Letterick, is one of the best books I've ever read! This book is clearly science fiction because of the major advance in science. This book is set in present day in the Okefanoke swamp. And has two main characters. Their names are Piper and Tad. These characters set off on a quest to save Piper's sister Grace, who is on the brink of death. But little did they know that while on their quest they would be hunted by a supreme killer. Uncovering mysterious history as they go. I rate this book five out of five stars. It is all about carnivorous plants, which I am seriously into. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a slight interest in carnivorous plants, swamps, and just plain unimaginable creatures.

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book so much. I loved it because it had a really good plot to it. I think this because it could happen in real life, not what happened in the book but the background to it. I also loved how it was descriptive and there was always something going on that they needed to fix in order to survive. I also loved the ending because it was just a good closing to this amazing book. I want there to be a sequel so bad. I am pretty sure there isn't going to be a sequel but I really wish there was a sequel. Maybe it could be about "Mergo" (what everyone called the plant) actually surviving what happened to it and comes back to get revenge on everyone that killed it. Who knows!

[AMY · Rating 1 out of 5]

306 pages. This book has super small type. The sister of the main character refers to a younger baby sister's diaper and says they need to "call an exorcist, because there is definitely something evil going on inside you. " (p. 2) She asks her mom if she should "fetch dad's riffle from the storage bay" so she can shoot her brother down from the tree. (p.3) The setting is in Jessup, GA. They are on a family vacation, driving cross-country. It involves a 14 year old girl - which is too old for elementary kids to enjoy. It was on the book fair and I was a bit surprised. I only read one chapter and that was enough to say, NO! Not recommended.

[Adam Griesbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very fun to read and interesting. I think one of the themes is be aware of the things around you.

[Amy Sharony]

If you read the Fug Girls, you know all about the scrolldown fug. If you don't read the Fug Girls, you should know that a scrolldown fug is when an outfit looks totally normal until you get to about the waist, where it switches to clown pants or carwash streamers or the dreaded tights-are-not-pants territory. What does this have to do with book recommendations? Well, The Murk by Roberty Lettrick is essentially the literary equivalent of the scrolldown fug.

It starts out normally enough. Piper, a tomboy-turned-pageant queen, is convinced that the cure to her baby sister's rare genetic disease is a plant hidden somewhere in the Okefenokee Swamp. Accompanied by her former best friend Tad (whose botanist ancestor perished on a similar search in the Okefenokee in the 1800s and who has a giant crush on his ex-best bud), her stowaway little brother, and a teenage swamp guide named Perch, Piper sets out to find the mysterious silver flower that is rumored to heal every malady. Perch cheerfully narrates the wonders of the Okefenokee to Piper and her companions (not to mention the reader) as they explore the swamp, tracing Cole's path through the wilderness. It's edu-tainment at its most palatable.

Then things get weird. Because the mythical plant isn't just real, it's sentient, with the power to hypnotize the gators, turtles, and other animal inhabitants of the swamp to do its bidding — and apparently its bidding is to make Piper and Company its dinner. (Oh, did I mention that the plant is carnivorous, too?) The second half of the book veers into a bizarre horror movie territory, with Piper escaping the burning digestive acids in the plant's giant stomach and fire-bombing the heart of the plant. Yeah. I know.

Usually, I'd skip reviewing a book like this simply because of the violence (which definitely gets a bit over-the-top), but I find myself with a soft spot for this book, despite its turn-for-the-weird. It's about the Okefenokee—one of Georgia's seven natural wonders—and the book does contain a wealth of information about one of our country's most famous swamps. And while the whole killer plant thing is pretty wacky, it does introduce some pretty interesting facts about botany. And honestly, it's so utterly odd that I want someone else to read it so its weirdness can be fully appreciated. So I say this is one to stalk at the library — worth checking out, though I'm not sure I'd want to allocate valuable shelf space for it in a permanent way. Though obviously, if you've had a hankering for a book about mind-controlling, carnivorous plants, you'll want to run, not walk, to pick this one up.

[olaf.0lafs · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book I read had positive and negative qualities that influence who will enjoy it. I first started reading this book back then in the early December. As I was scouring the class library for an interesting book of my taste, I then came across this book’s horrific cover and thought to give horror a shot. I gave this book a shot and was pleased to find it interesting and enjoyed reading it by myself.

This book was awesome for many reasons but on main reason is for its details on the setting. Even though this place is made up they even made their own pictures and website on the Okefenokee swamp. Another way this book is so great in my opinion is because of its story lines and how every action comes back in someway or another. Finally this is so good because of its attention to emotional detail, shown as a how the characters are feeling, thinking, and doing.


Ways this book could improve on is on being more interactive with more characters or objects in the story. This could possibly increase the impact on the reader. Another way this story could improve on is, being more connected to the real world with pop culture reference. Also on using more challenging grammar

Middle schoolers would enjoy read this book because of its mixture of horror, thriller, fiction, nonfiction, little humor. This book would be good for middle schoolers.

[BRANDON · Rating 3 out of 5]

After narrowly escaping the epidemic that devastated a summer camp in Washington state, Piper Canfield's life was totally changed. She distanced herself from family and friends, lost interest in old hobbies, and fell in with the wrong crowd, the worst kind of crowd, pageant queens. When her baby sister developed a terminal condition, Piper had no choice but to team up with the friend she had left behind and her pesky younger brother to search for a fabled flower growing in the Okefenokee Swamp. The flower could save baby Grace's life if it didn't cost Piper her own first.

The Murk is a slower read than Lettrick's first blood romp, Frenzy. After a jarring prologue, the pacing falls off for a while, and this book nearly ended up on my DNF pile. Once the pace picked back up, it became a mile-a-minute read but still not quite as action-packed as its predecessor. The body count in The Murk was considerably lower than in Frenzy, but Lettrick still didn't shy away from tough topics. It was still a pretty good read and definitely tickled my nostalgia bone. I had warm fuzzy feelings remembering M.D. Spenser's A Ghastly Shade of Green as I read. Hopefully we'll see some more from Lettrick, though he's gone on a nearly decade long hiatus since publishing The Murk.

[Rebekah Haas · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's engrossing, even to read as an adult, but it's just a little too fantastical and unrealistic for my taste. There are a lot of questions answered with real-life botany, but there are still a ton of questions left unanswered.

How come Piper is the only one with chemical burns, despite every other character getting injested too? Why is there so much breathable oxygen inside the plants? Why does Tad know how to make a button-powered camera tazer? Why does Tad have a disposable camera at all, and not a digital one? Why does Perch only have one knife and no other survival tools/ weapons? Why doesn't Macey have any tools or weapons?

These unanswered questions took me out of the plot, and while not everything ended in a neat bow, even issue they encountered resolved quickly. This also stopped me from feeling the plot.

[Andrea Boyette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Little Shop of Horrors meets Creature from the Black Lagoon for middle school readers. Solid story and I personally liked the botanical info but it was slow to get started and not in a suspenseful way. Plus, there were some logic leaps with the disappearing friendship caused by nothing and the annoying trope of 'popular beauty with heart of gold falls for uncool science nerd'. My favorite character was Creeper. The last part of the book was the most exciting and suspenseful. Still, a good read for any budding horror/suspense afficiandos or kids interested in plants and biology with adventure thrown in for added interest.

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

With a cover that reminds me of a cheesy B horror movie, my expectations for The Murk weren't very high. I was pleasantly surprised. Very well written and you can tell that a lot of research wen't into this novel. Not only was the story good and well written but it's very informative while being entertaining which is especially useful for younger readers. The main character was beautifully complex, I wen't between absolutely hating her to sympathizing with her and never once did I stop rooting for them. I highly recommend this book for kids in middle school. It's dark and serious enough to hold their interest while also being appropriate for their age.

[Stephen King · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Murk is one of the most incredible books I've ever read. In the beginning, Letrrick perfectly captures the atmosphere of reading curled up on a rainy day and adds school drama that feels organic, nostalgic and leaves you craving for more, unlike most other YA books which tend to feel cliched and heavy in a bad way. The later part of the book–the murk part–is really, really well written, and captures a incredibly rich atmosphere and a similar rainy day feel. However, the first part was so incredible that I wish the whole book was just about said drama. Solid–no, more than solid read, but a missed opportunity

[♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best book I’ve ever read. The way that the action built up and suspicious things kept happening was really hooking. Unlike other mystery/horror books I have read you really couldn’t see what was coming up. You could see how it was related once they figured out but couldn’t predict it. the way the character overcame it was interesting. It took them a long time to escape the swamp and everything trying to kill them and was filled with action all the way. The notes and diary entries didn’t relate much to the story but helped increase the suspense and curiosity.

[Ian S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The spirit of adventure, the loyalty of family, and the resilience of nature culminate into an interesting book of a group of children who set out into an unexplored swap to find a fabled medicine used to cure all.

[Naeemaomar · Rating 5 out of 5]

COuld not get enough I love it thumbs up from me

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have ever read! It contains lots of action and drama with a little bit of a strange vibe.

[Rogelio Panao Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I definitely loved this book. This is one of my favorites.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

did not love the use of the First Nations slur.

[Theron · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book took forever to read, but it was good. I think it is a good book for middle schoolers.

[Beans Alford · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read Frenzy and was hungry for more of this type of writing, however it was not near what I was expecting.