Where the Crawdads Sing

 Hello Interwebs!

Another book review for you. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. This book is in the running for my favorite book of the year. I had put off reading it because the synopsis was pretty vague and I wasn't sure it was something I'd enjoy. Until this year I haven't read much in the way of Adult fiction unless it was horror or mystery/thrillers and this book is placed securely in the realm of historical fiction/literary fiction. Since I started my Book of the Month subscription last year and since I branched out my YouTube booktubers I started reading more adult fiction of all genres. Then with quarantine I've been craving new and different books and started using Read with Jenna and Reese's Book Club selections as recommendations, especially via their Instagram and Facebook pages. One book I kept seeing recommended was this one and I have to admit, although I was very late to the game, this may be one of the best books I've ever read. In fact, I bought a copy and sent it as a gift to my grandmother who is housebound due to health issues and COVID (she never had COVID but her health issues would make it really bad if she did). As always spoilers abound after the cover image. 

Anyway so this book is about a girl named Kya who lives in the marshes of North Carolina. In the beginning of the novel she lives there with her parents and her older siblings. Then her mother walks away from the family and doesn't come back. Then her siblings walk away one by one leaving her with their abusive father. She spends a summer alone with her abusive father who has cut back on drinking and teachers her something about the marshes and fishing and boating in them before they receive a letter from her mother which angers him and he disappears as well leaving the little girl, who is six or seven years old, alone. 

She experiences the pinnacle of kindness from others who live on the fringes of society: Jumpin' who runs a gas station and bait shop between the marsh where Kya lives and the nearby city of Barkley Cove. He gases up her boat for her and finds resources for her, covering up the charity his help is by making her feel like she's doing equal bartering; Mable, Jumpin's wife who claims that Kya's disgusting smoked fish is exactly what people in her neighborhood need and gives her clothes and mothering and other supplies as she needs them under the guise of trades; and Tate who is Kya's love interest throughout her story as well as the boy who teaches her how to read. 

As the book goes on you meet Chase Andrews, who you know at the outset will end up dead with Kya accused and tried for his murder. He's a popular boy in the city of Barkley Cove who romances Kya and then attempts to rape her. His body is found on the ground at the base of a fire tower in the marshes not terribly far from Kya's home and she is the only suspect in what they assume is a murder. 

Mostly this story is a coming of age story for Kya as she grows from child to adult on her own in the marshes with no formal education. She learns to read from Tate who comes to teach her every week adn after the trial and after many ups and downs, ends up marrying her and living with her in the marshes. She loves the marshes and gathers anything she can that she likes: feathers, shells, plants, etc. She eventually becomes a celebrated naturalist, with her nature books on the marsh and its inhabitants being published full of her own drawings/paintings and words. 

In the end, after her death, Tate is going through her private things and finds poems that he had seen published in the local newspapers dating back to when they were teenagers and she first began reading and writing for herself: poems published under a pseudonym and written by Kya. The last of which being an unpublished one that as good as confesses to the murder of Chase that she was acquitted of all those years before, a murder that was done in something like self-defense with a victim who had it coming. 

I loved this book. It was engaging and entrancing and from the very beginning when Kya's family leaves her on her own in their shack in the marsh you want to know where her story ends up, especially with the chapters that interrupt the "current" timeline with future glimpses into Chase's murder and Kya's trial. You want her life to end up happy and successful and accepted and she finds all of those things. The prose is beautiful and the descriptions make you feel as if you are there in that time and place and I loved every moment of it. An easy 5/5 stars and one of my favorite books of the year, if not of all time. I highly recommend this book to everyone. 

Happy Reading!

Richelle