Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens Book Review

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I picked up Where the Crawdads Sing because it was the September book for Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club, and y’all know I pretty much do everything Reese tells me to. It was an interesting debut novel that I can only describe as Barbara Kingsolver meets Pat Conroy.

Where the Crawdads Sing is the story of Kya Clark, a young woman who, abandoned by her family, grew up alone in the marshlands of 1950s North Carolina. Kya is deemed “marsh trash” by most denizens of the nearby town and attends only one day of school in her life. She forges a few strong friendships, develops an almost preternatural knowledge of the local flora and fauna, and learns to read (and love) with the help of a kind local boy. The story alternates between Kya’s bleak 1950s childhood and the late 1960s when, as a young adult, the “Marsh Girl” finds herself on trial for the murder of the town’s golden boy.

Where the Crawdads Sing creates a delicate and fascinating world within the North Carolina marshes. In her fiction debut, author Delia Owens, an internationally-acclaimed wildlife scientists, raises complex questions about the laws and morality of the natural world vs. those proscribed by society. This was a very good book that could have been a great book if the ending had been a little more finely tuned. I recommend to anyone who loves murder mysteries, stories of the Carolina Coast, or the works of Barbara Kingsolver.

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