#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING PHENOMENONMore than 6 million copies soldA Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club PickA Business Insider Defining Book of the Decade “I can’t even express how much I love this book! I didn’t want this story to end!”–Reese Witherspoon“Painfully beautiful.”–The New York Times Book ReviewFor years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet … years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life–until the unthinkable happens.
Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.
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The end f the book is a dud.
great story
As good as everyone said. Great discussion material for our book club.
I loved this book so much! It is so beautifully written with characters that touch your soul. It made my heart swell.
Best book I’ve read all year. I highly recommend it
This book provides a window into a young woman’s life that is beautiful and heartbreaking. A woman’s journey, the beauty of nature, a murder to be soft, and the idea Of love are all wonderfully explored in this novel. It will make you want to visit the marsh.
Of course I heard of Where the Crawdads Sing, but until now I didn’t feel the call to pick it up and read it, but with so many people talking about it now was finally the time to get this one off of my TBR list. The book started slow for me, but many character-driven stories do because they need time to percolate and build the character within the pages. The reward of staying with the story though was totally worth it. By the end, I felt like Kya was a girl I knew, someone who grew up down the street. I felt for her with every up and down, twist and turn of her life as she grew from a child to a woman. This book had a little of everything- tragedy, romance, mystery, court-room drama, and some wins and losses
for Kya along the way. The prose is beautifully written and transports you to this world where Kya is forced to grow-up and depend on her natural surroundings, so well developed the location feels like a character unto itself.
This is a character-driven tale, both haunting and beautiful at the same time and totally hard to put down once your are immersed into Kya’s life and her home in the swamp.
Best book I ever read.
I loved this book from the begging to the end. I hated to see it end.
Simply loved it! Took me into the old south where I’ve never been describing conditions of weather, areas, people in days gone by. Different, page turner.
An amazing and very beautiful book! Captivating, unpredictable, romantic and, also, an entertaining crime novel. Anyone should read it!
Awesome book! Loved it!
I wish this book never ended! I could’ve read another 800 pages. The struggles this child and soon to become woman went through. The peaks and valley of her tale are breathtaking. This story goes right to your heart. If you want a book you don’t wanna put down, this is the one for you. It just ended too soon.
Set in the North Carolina Marshes in the 1950s, this is the story of Kya Clark a little girl who is eventually abandoned by her entire family. She’s seen as a ‘feral’ child, dubbed the ‘Marsh Girl’ by unsympathetic and prejudiced locals. Surviving by her wits and her growing knowledge of the marshy landscape and creatures around her, she evades the school truant officer. When her food and money run out, she trades mussels and smoked fish for basic supplies.
Meanwhile, in flash-forward chapters we learn of the unexplained death of Chase – a posh womanising young man whom the grown-up Kya has been seen with. The local sheriff becomes convinced Chase was murdered and begins to piece together evidence to accuse Kya of his murder. Given the prejudice attitude of the local community, it seems unlikely she will receive justice.
The novel is suffused with extraordinary and poetic details about the wildlife of the marshland – the only ‘home’ Kya has ever known. I got caught up in Kya’s world and couldn’t put it down.
The best book I have read in years! I have recommended it to several people and no one has had a bad thing to say about it!
Engaging
Entertaining easy read that was different from the fiction I usually read
Absolutely my favorite book to have read on a while.
This is a wonderful book. Ms Owens dies a great job building the swap world of the female protagonist. There is an underlying mystery but the book is not built around that, it’s built around the relationships of Kya, the girl who raised herself alone in this wet wilderness. Poignant and well crafted plot and characters. There’s a reason this book was on the best seller list for over a year! Highly recommend to anyone, male or female.
This is one of the best books I have ever read. Once you start it, you won’t be able to put it down.