#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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Delia Owens has written a masterpiece involving a young women who is abandoned in a marsh to raise herself. The author writes The marsh allows her survival as well as comfort. The marsh did not confine her like any sacred ground but kept your secrets.When cornered desperate or isolated man reverts to his instincts. That aim straight at survival . It is not morality but simple math .The writer explains Among themselves doves fight as often as hawks .And fight this young child does who tells us nature seems the only stone that would not slip midstream. In the end it is nature that protects us ,that it becomes a saving grace !The author quotes Emily Dickinson who writes The sweeping Nature had protected her Rooted in the Earth . One realizes we come initially from the earth and shall return there!Where the crawdads sing !
I listened to the audio and almost gave up on the story but so glad I stuck with it. Owens unique tale was intriguing and interesting with a protagonist you had to admire in the end.
The contrarian in me wanted to not like this book, a gift from a friend, because it’s so popular, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The descriptions of the marsh land are lush but clear — I could picture the places easily, even without the map in the front, though I do love maps in books! Kya is an intriguing character, the plot solid, the two timelines handled well. There are some stunning passages, though the author resists the temptation to get caught up in them. I did not guess the ending and was genuinely surprised; it ended the only way it truly could have.
Rave reviews for ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ made me wait to read it as I hate jumping on a bandwagon. However, once the hubbub settled down, I definitely wanted to see what was so great about it firsthand. Poetry. I’m not referring to the poetry included within the book (that was fairly bland, although Owens acknowledges this through one of her characters). I’m referring to the poetic descriptions of the world in which Kya lives.
Kya’s life is a tortured tale of abuse, heavy with neglect and bullying. It was fairly hard to read through some of these pains. The ones that were realistic and the ones that were too far-fetched to connect with. As other reviewers mention, there are practical details that are overlooked. A child with a shambled shack for a home never needs repairs over the course of fifteen years. It’s located in the marshes, an environment that devours everything with salt and moisture, but Kya’s house stands through it all. This is the same environment that destroyed much of the physical evidence on possibly murdered Chase Andrews’ deceased body within hours of his demise. To the extent that once the corpse is in the coroner’s office, the office itself struggles with the additional salt. This is one of many ridiculous rules of Owens’ world that the reader must accept or we lose out on the greater story.
The initial chapters are heavy with descriptive prose. It took a bit to get through and into the story, but once I did, I was hooked. Owens maintains her details throughout the book, cutting back as the story of Kya as a murder suspect takes center stage. Personally, it was such a beautifully written story with the marshes of Georgia as an additional character, I enjoyed the book. I would recommend it to others, as long as you can overlook the logistics of a 6-year-old girl maturing in a hash environment with bare minimum help.
Singing the Song of a great Storyteller! This is one awesome book! I feel it is one of the best pieces of fiction ever written! It is very well written. The characters are thoroughly developed and realistic as well as believable. It was one of the books that I just did not want it to end. The author draws you in to the narrative and you feel lik a bystander reading the movie playing in your mind.
What an amazing, thought-provoking book that lives up to the hype. It’s more than a book, this is a classic that you’ll need to have at least one copy of and maybe another to loan out to anyone who hasn’t been touched by Delia Owens’ words. Her use of imagery is so lyrical and poetic that you can see the marsh, the gulls, even the feathers, in your mind. As great as that is, her characters are incredibly drawn-out, unique, and realistic while captivating an imaginary world that may never exist. Even the characters who seem the least complex have surprising moments but when it comes to Tate, Jumpin’, Jodie, and of course, Kya, you simply feel like you’ve just gotten to know and love an entire community.
This book will stay with me always. It has bottomless poignance without a drop of self-pity or coveting or revenge and displays an enviable openness to being teachable by different wisdoms and times. It shows the strength of spirit, the mistakes of youth, of friendship and kindness, resilience, prejudice and forgiveness and demonstrates a strange alluring beauty of the swamp that I never thought possible.
If you waited too long to read this like I did, put it at the top of your TBR list now. You can’t afford to sleep on this experience a day longer.
The novel was a unique voyage to the marsh world in North Carolina. I had to google a few names of animals and plants, however, I enjoyed every word of it. The Marsh Girl is one of the most mysterious and intriguing characters I have read in awhile. I recommend the novel to all who love Nature and seek a connection to it.
I have to admit that when I started reading Where the Crawdads Sing, it took me a couple of chapters to understand what the author was doing. A lot of time sequence back and forth. When I got the rhythm of it, however, it turned out to be a book that was hard to put down. Excellent job and kudos to the author
A truly excellent read, right up to the end that has a superb plot twist.
Owens is so strong in character and her obvious delight in the natural world was breathtaking. I wanted to join Kya in the tremendous sense of freedom depicted and feel the wind in my hair along with her while in her boat. And among the finest of characters emerging in the book was the marsh itself.
Five hauntingly beautiful stars!
It took me days to get over this book. I was telling everyone what a great book it is. You will go through so many emotions. If you have any trigger to abuse then I would not recommend this book
At the library where I work, this book has been requested on a long waiting list. I decided to find out why. Now I know. The story follows nature lover, Catherine “Kya,” who grows up alone in the 1950’s in the North Carolina Marshland after her siblings and mother leave, and her father, the cause of their departure, eventually disappears. Avoiding the townspeople and the truant officer who tries to take her to school after she’s taunted and teased by the other children, she makes one friend, Tate, who teaches her to read and shares her love of nature. As the two grow, they fall in love, but Tate leaves to go to college. The events that occur when he doesn’t keep his promise to return to her, set off a chain of events that result with Kya accused of the murder of a man whose family is well known in the town. There is much more to this story that features themes of prejudice and abuse but also the beauty of nature and the enduring quality of love and friendship. One addition that I especially enjoyed was the brief appearance of the court cat, Sunday Justice. Don’t miss this read that will keep you turning the pages and also has a surprising twist at the end.
Oh my god, that was awful.
I made it as far as I could, but even for my book club, I can’t slog through another page of this To Kill a Mockingbird wannabe. It was trite, illogical and infuriating. I kept waiting for all that gorgeous prose the reviews promised, and it never appeared. Believe me, I looked.
As someone who has lived her entire life in North Carolina, I have to raise my hand and say NO ONE SPEAKS LIKE THAT. The cadence and phrasing are entirely inauthentic. You know how, in Hollywood movies, every southern man sounds like John Wayne and every southern woman sounds like Scarlett O’Hara, regardless of whether they’re from Virginia, Alabama or Texas? Yeah, that, but here we have the Southern White Trash stereotype.
Where the Crawdads Sing reads like someone binge-watched The Andy Griffith Show and then decided “How quaint. I think I’ll write a novel wrapped in what I imagine are Rural Southernisms.”
If you are one of the few people left in the world who hasn’t yet read this book, I give you this simple warning: Don’t believe the hype.
I enjoyed it, but didn’t really get into it the way some people did. Great writing, though.
Poetic and beautiful. I soaked in every page of this book. The word craft is something to be admired; the story is riveting and gut-wrenching. I loved everything about this novel. It’s literature at its best. Best book of 2019.
Where the Crawdads Sing is an excellent book, but it could have been better. The author’s expertise as a naturalist really shines throughout it, but sometimes, things get lost in that light. The novel is many things — a coming of age story, a murder mystery, a commentary on human relationships in a small town, and a lyrical description of life in eastern North Carolina — and perhaps, the author tried to do too much. There are times that her descriptive writing her descriptive passages obscure the plot, causing me to gloss over passages that maybe I shouldn’t have to, to get to the meat of the story. And as a North Carolina resident, I found inconsistencies. Owens has her characters traveling to Asheville quite a bit. Sometimes there is a solid reason for this, but sometimes it’s just to visit a city. Problem is, Asheville is just about the furthest NC city (7-8 hours, by car) that they could choose — there are many closer alternatives. Owens occasionally writes in dialect, but the dialects in Crawdads are not those I’ve heard spoken in that part of North Carolina – nowhere did I find a trace of the Elizabethan “hoi toider” speech commpn to that area. I also thought that the story ended quite abruptly – I would have appreciated more time with a middle-aged and older Marsh Girl. Lest you put these criticisms down to mere quibbling, I still think the novel is exceptional, but I also think the points mentioned above justify docking it one star. Read this book. You will be doing yourself a great injustice if you don’t.
Masterfully written, haunting, exciting. Highly recommend this book.
I did not want the story to end.
A captivating read with an incredible sense of place. Tragic and beautiful, I have almost no complaints about this read. I have a feeling it will stand the test of time.
I was carrying this book with me to a meeting where I thought I might have time waiting around. Before I’d even opened the first page, two strangers had individually approached me to tell me how amazing it is. That’s a recommendation in itself but I’ll add more. This is a period story, covering the childhood and young adulthood of Kya. I won’t rehash the plot, but the central charter is drawn beautifully. The book handles themes of poverty, domestic abuse, loneliness, rejection, class and stereotyping. It’s a sensitive book, very well drawn with some superlative descriptions that are short and stunning, keeping plot moving. You’ll be drawn straight into the story. I read it, in fact, in one sitting on a plane journey (there was no time before the meeting) and I cried 3 times to the horror of the teenager next to me! This book deserves the great reviews it’s had. It is NOT a product merely of great publishing house advertising, or of a viral campaign. It’s not often these days a book comes along that will endure, but this one certainly will. Highly, highly recommended read, and my favourite book so far of 2019.
A lyrical journey through a girl’s life of abandonment and near isolation in a natural wonderland. Abandoned at an early age, Kya learns to live off the land, appreciate its beauty, and survive its harsh reality. Throughout her solitary existence, she seldom encounters and mixes with humans, but due to the rarity, each of those interactions makes a lasting impact. There’s an unexpected murder and outcome that makes very little impact on Kya or the story. It’s told with such a long lens and impersonal narrative, it’s more of a nature documentary than the story of an unusual woman’s life. It’s absorbing, but a little slow and tedious.