Where the Crawdads Sing Book Review

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Last Updated on April 18th, 2019

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This is another book that I read for my Moms’ Book Club. Where the Crawdads Sing has high ratings + fab book reviews all over the Internet + is part of Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club.

It is so wildly popular that I was like # one million (total exaggeration) on the wait list for it at the library. I put out a call to borrow a copy on our neighborhood FB page but no luck there either so I ended up buying it on Kindle.

I say all of this to point out just how popular the book is right now.

Overview

The book is about a young girl, Kya, who lives in a marsh in North Carolina. Her family is extremely poor + one by one both of her parents + all of her brothers + sisters abandon her.

The book is all about her daily life of survival. She finds ways of finding food, making money to buy her necessities + learning about the flower, fauna, animals + more that live in the marsh.

Kya ends up fending for herself over the years until she becomes a young woman. In the end, she is accused of murdering her former lover + stands trial for it.

What I Loved

The book has a TOTAL twist ending, which I loved. While it is possible that I should have seen some of the ending coming, I did NOT. I really enjoyed the twist.

What I Didn’t Love

I did not enjoy the beginning chapters of the book. In fact, after reading the first two or three chapters I was starting to wonder how in the world this book is so popular.

If you decide to read it, push through the first few chapters. It DOES get better.

I also had a hard time believing, at times, that a girl that was so young could actually fend for herself. She literally lived alone in a marsh from about the age of 5 or 6 until she was a woman (+ even continued to live there as an adult).

On one hand, I can see a “survival” mentality that would have had to kick in so that she could forage for food, live in a marsh + raise herself from a very young age. On the other hand, I have a five year old girl + cannot really imagine her actually raising herself, feeding herself, living by herself–having to completely fend for herself.

Overall, I give the book an A. From a few chapters in, this book ended up pulling me in. It ended up being a page turner because I wanted to see what happened next.