Where the Crawdads Sing in 2025 Reading Challenge

May 07, 2019 Meera rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, historical-fiction, bookmarks-magazine, scribd

This was a wonderful book from beginning to end with its unique setting and character. I started it as an ebook and finished listening to the audiobook and I would recommend the audiobook.

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Apr 26, 2020 Danielle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Very slow at parts, but it was a really good story!
Definitely tugged at the heartstrings.

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Sep 24, 2021 Curlysue rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020readingchallenge

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Jul 06, 2023 Sabrina rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: coming-of-age, realistic-fiction, mystery, mystery-crime, family-relationships, relationships, read-in-2023, 52in52weeks2023, pbtsubdue2023, marsh

I will admit that when I picked up this book to read that I was worried it would not live up to the hype. Well, I was wrong, and it did.

Where the Crawdads Sing is a beautiful story about humanity that touches on the most base and unkind aspects of human nature and the kindest and most thoughtful aspects. It's a book about family, love, loss, abandonment, hope, and healing.

Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), at age 5 or 6 (she's not really sure how old she is) watches one morning as her mother walks I will admit that when I picked up this book to read that I was worried it would not live up to the hype. Well, I was wrong, and it did.

Where the Crawdads Sing is a beautiful story about humanity that touches on the most base and unkind aspects of human nature and the kindest and most thoughtful aspects. It's a book about family, love, loss, abandonment, hope, and healing.

Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), at age 5 or 6 (she's not really sure how old she is) watches one morning as her mother walks down the dirt/gravel lane from their shack in her faux alligator pumps. Not once does her mother turn to look or wave goodbye, which Kya finds unusual, and her mother never returns. Eventually, Kya's older siblings abandon her too and she's left with her drunken and abusive father, who has a few moments of kindness for Kya, but then, he too eventually leaves to never return.

Kya is isolated and alone but is a survivor; she fends for herself, hides from those who try to find her to send her to school, and essentially raises herself in the marsh that she probably knows better than anyone else. Because of her behavior and only fleeting sightings of her from those in town, she becomes known as the Marsh Girl and rural legends build up about her.

Interwoven with Kya's story is the story of the death of a local "golden boy", who was the star quarterback in high school. His death appears to have occurred under mysterious circumstances, and the local sheriff begins to investigate the death as something more than a tragic accident. Town prejudices against "swamp trash" like Kya (according to those who live in town) soon lead to more suspicion.

While the story for many seems implausible that a young girl could have raised herself from nearly the age of 6 or 7 (despite her father's presence at that time) without eventually being found and taken into the care of social services, I was partially raised in the South, but not in the swamps or the marshy coastline of the Carolinas. I was raised in the foothills of Appalachia where families live back in the woods on ridges and hollars, and where people can hide out from the more "civilized and modern" world; where people disappear and are hard to find if they don't want to be found. So, the implausibility that many see with this story wasn't all that implausible to me.

The nature writing and the descriptions of swamp life, the birds, and the tides kept me hooked and were truly fascinating. To see the contrast of how Kya and other who lived in those areas see the swamp versus how those who don't have their homes there was one of the most interesting aspects of the book. Kya saw the marsh and the swamp for it's whole beauty, and relied on the living breathing ecosystem of the area as a fundamental part of her life. She was the marsh.

I was also especially pleased with how many of the minor characters, especially those who Kya began to trust and rely on and protect as much as they protected her, were developed throughout the book.

This was a solid 4 star read for me. ...more

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