Book Review :: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
ISBN: 0735219095
Published by Penguin Publishing Group
on 14 August 2018
Pages: 370
Goodreads

For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet fishing village. Kya Clark is barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when the popular Chase Andrews is found dead, locals immediately suspect her.

But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world–until the unthinkable happens.

Last updated on 13 February 2023

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What is Where the Crawdads Sing about?

Where the Crawdads Sing tells the story of Kya, a girl who has grown up in the marsh, abandoned by her family, and learns to live and thrive on her own. When she’s grown up, a boy in her town dies. And the town thinks that Kya killed him.

We’re introduced to Kya Clark when she’s a young child, living in a little shack of a house in the marsh with her mother, father and multiple siblings. While things aren’t perfect – far from it – Kya loves her mother and her siblings, and the life they have in the marsh. As her siblings get older, they begin to leave. And one day so does her mother. And she doesn’t come back.

“She laughed for his sake, something she’d never done. Giving away another piece of herself just to have someone else.”

Kya is left with her drunk father, who, for the better, spends days, weeks, and months away from their house, leaving Kya alone with the shack and the marsh.

Where the Crawdads Sing follows Kya as she grows up, is dubbed the ‘Marsh Girl’ by the people in town, and learns everything there is to know about the marsh and the creatures and plants that live there. She meets a boy, a nice boy named Tate, the only one her age who is nice to her. As they grow in their friendship, and later something more, he teaches her to read and write, and she teaches him about the Marsh.

“I wasn’t aware that words could hold so much. I didn’t know a sentence could be so full.”

When Tate goes away to college, Kya is left alone again. Until she meets Chase Andrews. And their stories and lives begin to interweave, and while he’s no Tate, there’s something about him.

But then he’s dead in the marsh and Kya is suddenly pulled in for questioning.

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My thoughts on Where the Crawdads Sing

Where the Crawdads Sing is not my ‘usual’ read. If you’ve been around here for any length of time then you’ll know I’ma big fan of Young Adult fantasy, Fantasy, a bit of romance on occasion … and rarely do I read books like this. I was worried I wasn’t going to like it, that I was just reading it because I wanted to see the Where the Crawdads Sing movie when it came out.

But I was pleasantly surprised.

“Autumn leaves don’t fall, they fly. They take their time and wander on this their only chance to soar.”

Delia Owens, who wrote Where the Crawdads Sing, writes beautifully, and even though I’m not a fan of long-winded prose or descriptions of marshes, I found myself quite captivated by many of the scenes and descriptions. A reflection on the writing, for sure. Where the Crawdads Sing quotes are ample in my Saved Quotes on Goodreads.

The other aspect of some books that I don’t really like is the flash-back, jump-in-time format. We spend most of Where the Crawdads Sing following Kya as she grows up. Her story is mostly chronological. Except for some chapters scattered throughout the book that is told from the perspective of the policemen on the case of Chase Andrews in the ‘present’.

When we eventually catch up to the present, we know Kya and her story so well and can start piecing together what happened for ourselves.

“There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.”

I loved Tate, he was such a sweetheart, and while I got mad at him for leaving Kya all alone again, she was strong enough to take it. And I won’t say more than that.

Overall, Where the Crawdads Sing was a beautiful and heart-filled and heart-wrenching tale, and I’m pleased to be able to give t 4-stars. Perhaps this is the start of me reading more books of this sort of genre. Maybe. We’ll see. 😉

Have you read Where the Crawdads Sing? Have you seen the movie yet? What did you think?