Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

This book chronicles the downfall of a family-run amusement park after its start performer (and the family's mother) dies and a chain amusement park (World of Darkness) moves in down the road. At times (especially when describing the World of Darkness, which was given a lot of thought and reads, in certain ways, like a parody of Disney) the book is quite humorous, despite its sad story--the downfall of an eccentric family. The young narrator seems older than her thirteen years, so that I kept forgetting how young she was when she sets off across the swamps to rescue her older sister who's been bewitched by a ghost. The end came a little fast and furious for my taste, and I felt like one of the plot threads in particular was unsatisfactorily resolved, but I really enjoyed this book.