Where the Crawdads Sing in 2025 Reading Challenge

Sep 08, 2019 Natalie rated it liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Where the Crawdads Sing is a book that starts off with much promise. I really enjoyed the author’s writing style, her ease and use of words. I felt she had a sustained voice and the story felt well crafted. I enjoyed the quoted poetry, the inclusion of natural history and biology facts, and even the legal ones.

But I found myself very mistaken about what the story intended to be. I thought it was more strongly based in reality - in the end it was a romantic fairytale and sorely failed to live up Where the Crawdads Sing is a book that starts off with much promise. I really enjoyed the author’s writing style, her ease and use of words. I felt she had a sustained voice and the story felt well crafted. I enjoyed the quoted poetry, the inclusion of natural history and biology facts, and even the legal ones.

But I found myself very mistaken about what the story intended to be. I thought it was more strongly based in reality - in the end it was a romantic fairytale and sorely failed to live up to it’s potential. There is just too much not to be believed in the tale.

Can a 7 or 8 year-old child maintain a house and cook and forage for food on her own in the backwoods?

Would no adult in the town take her in? Befriending is one thing. And a 12 year old might be so resourceful about foraging and handouts, but not and very young child.

What is this mysterious prejudice against “marsh people”? The townspeople treat her like a leper - but she’s an abandoned child.

It seems like the author, Ms Owen, is using this idea of Marsh People to symbolize and stand in for the prejudices we find around ourselves in the real world. I think she missed the opportunity to a address real problems: refugees, minorities, oppressed religious groups, gays, etc. There are real hates in this world and that would have helped to ground the story.

Kya wasn’t from some long isolated sect. Her family wasn’t hated for generations. Her parents had moved to the marsh only a few years earlier. So why would a town behave this way to an orphan?

Then there was the extreme isolation that the young child had to endure. That sort of thing is usually damaging to one’s mental health. It is not the same as shyness. And perhaps she may have had mental health issues but then that was never described in the story.

There are other plot twists and turns but I found I just could not believe them. Like a mystery writer, Ms Owens wants to hold some information back and spin out the story bit by bit. I think she succeeded in that with the plot, but it doesn’t work for the characters if they are to be believed.

So in the end I was disappointed. This will make a sweet made for TV movie, but it lacked the kind of depth that would have held my interest . ...more

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Oct 01, 2020 Hilary rated it really liked it

Overall, I loved reading this book. Not sure how I feel about the ending and throughout the book, there were a couple things that seemed implausible, but it didn’t ruin the book for me. It was definitely a page turner and once I got halfway through, I didn’t want to stop reading! This is the quickest I’ve read a book in a while!

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