From the Bookshelf of Nothing But Reading Challenges…

Where the Crawdads Sing

Delia Owens

Start date: January 16, 2019

Finish date: January 30, 2019

Discussion: Books of the Month

Why we're reading this: Jan 2019 Adult Fiction Book of the Month
[close] Jan 2019 Adult Fiction Book of the Month

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Books of the Month

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By Moderators of… , Challenger-in-Chief · 12 posts · 74 views

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* The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese - Sep 25 Theme BOM - South and South East Asia (Starts 5 September)
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last updated Sep 12, 2025 09:26PM

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What Members Thought

Jul 10, 2019 Brenda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Beautiful story. The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 was because I thought it started fairly slow, and the ending was too cliche.

3 likes · Like · see review

Aug 11, 2019 Jen Ifer's Inklings rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio-books, read-in-2019, popsugar-2019-reading-challenge

This book is worth all the hype. It’s a story about love and family and abandonment and survival.

3 likes · Like · see review

Oct 01, 2021 Ivy added it

Shelves: 2021-books-read, dnf

I did not finish this book...I just could not get into it.

1 like · Like · see review

Jul 21, 2022 Lou rated it liked it

Shelves: books-i-own

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Ok. So first of all I thought this book was about something entirely different to what it actually was. But that’s on me for not having looked more into it before reading it. I thought it was a lot heavier than what it actually is, as in from the same shelves as “The colour purple” or “The Boy in the striped pyjamas” kind of heaviness if you get my drift.

The nature writing was absolutely beautiful and it felt like being in the marsh. The descriptions of the grasses and birds, the changes in tid Ok. So first of all I thought this book was about something entirely different to what it actually was. But that’s on me for not having looked more into it before reading it. I thought it was a lot heavier than what it actually is, as in from the same shelves as “The colour purple” or “The Boy in the striped pyjamas” kind of heaviness if you get my drift.

The nature writing was absolutely beautiful and it felt like being in the marsh. The descriptions of the grasses and birds, the changes in tides and the boat routes. If anything, more would have been really nice and the descriptions of Kya’s illustrations for instance left me longing to “see” her books.

Plot wise, it left me wanting. I don’t see why there is such a big hype about this book or how it became a movie already. I don’t think the ending was a plot twist at all, I saw it coming. It would have either been Kya or Tate. Ok maybe Chase’s wife but she didn’t seem the type to know how to steer a boat in the marsh really. There wasn’t anyone else it could have been as we know very few characters anyway, most of them don’t even have lines. The whodunnit murder mystery side of it needed more maturing and more characters needed to be brought in as suspects, more people who had issues with Chase.
The whole effort Kya went through to get it done that way is very implausible. What made her suddenly be capable of murder? Murder is that one step extra, not anyone can do it and she didn’t seem like the kind of person who would take a life.
I don’t like that jumping around from past to present, but that’s just my personal taste. I think it breaks the story around too much taking you away from the main plot.

I think for a debut novel it was ok. Needs a bit more work around a plot I’d say.
When we reached the point where Kya has made it, She’s found her family, she’s speaking to Tate again, all I thought was, this is just half of the book, what more could possibly happen? I was disappointed with how quickly it wrapped up to the murder rather than expanding more about Kya or maybe even making the story more about her integrating a bit more with society or bigger cities, doing well or very poorly and going back. Going to university for instance or accepting the job at the lab.
I also found it weird that at the end she wrote poetry. I find that very random and seemed out of character because it was never obvious that she enjoyed writing much but more illustrating. ...more

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