Where the Crawdads Sing: Reese's Book Club (A Novel)

The Australian media broadcaster ABC through ABC Radio National, is currently asking readers for their choices for the top 100 Books of the 21st Century. Hundreds if not thousands of votes have already been received and avid readers are sharing their picks on The ABC Book Club facebook page. Having seen countless numbers of readers selecting Wherer the Crawdads Sing, I decided to buy it and am so very, very glad I did. It is beautifully written and a fabulous story about a young girl's unfortunate, dysfunctional family and her strength and perseverance in overcoming immense odds to not only reach adulthood, but become a shining example of never giving up. With a strong emphasis on preserving and appreciating the beautiful harmony of the environment, it gives an insight into the balance required for all lifeforms - humans included - in marsh/swamp/sea environments. The main characters are wonderfully crafted and they come to life throughout the book - which really was a page turner and hard to put down! I am feeling quite bereft since finishing it - it was such a thoroughly enjoyable, engaging book. It will be a very hard act to follow. Am hoping that Delia Owens writes more novels - I am very tempted to read her non-fiction books about her life as a wildlife scientist Can highly recommend it - would love to add it to my list of best 100 books of the 21st century - in fact I reckon I'd place it in the top 20!

Count me among the thousands of readers who think ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ is a wonderful tale and a joy to read. Kya is such a delightful character. Abandoned by her mother at the age of six, she is both sweet and resourceful. Her father is the impetus for the abandonment, a wounded veteran of WW2, he tries to drown his problems in drunken rages. Kya’s Ma can’t take the abuse he dishes out anymore, and she leaves their home, a shack in coastal Carolina, behind. Eventually all the siblings also take off, one by one, for parts unknown and Kya must deal with her drunken Pa in the wild marshland. Basically, the little girl learns to fend for herself, growing up with the animals and birds as her tutors and playmates. She becomes known around town as the Marsh Girl. I enjoyed Part 1, where Kya slowly matures into a teenage woman. This is a little better than Part 2, where Kya has to endure the cruel prejudices and indifference of the townspeople. Both parts contain excellent writing, painting pictures of the environment with remarkable prose. But this book is much more than pretty words. The plot is captivating, drawing me in and pushing me forward to chapter after chapter with a curiosity for what will happen next. Kya finds love with Tate, only to be deserted by another that she cares for. She later finds love again, this time with Chase. But this time she is rejected in a different way, and she endures an atrocity that is both confusing and heartbreaking to her innocent mind. One of the best characters is Jumpin, proprietor of the wharf boat dock and friend to Kya when she was rejected by everyone else. Later, Kya tells Jumpin some of what Chase had done to her, and I thought he would come to her aid in Part 2. Perplexing. But the small holes in this story are easily overlooked. A solid five star read should induce emotions from the reader and in the best books the characters should make a real connection. ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ is populated by some of the most endearing characters that I have known.

This is a really great debut novel by Delia Owens. What I liked most about this fine novel is the writing style. The author's style is picturesque and has a flow to it. It is clearly written, but is not a light read. It is the kind of book I needed to give my full attention. The story involves two separate time lines that slowly weave together. The protagonist is a young lady who has a difficult childhood and who learns to cope with life on her own terms. As I stated above the writing is often exquisite. Although very good, the story itself is not quite as good as the writing. But the writing is so great that for the story to be as great as the writing would make this one of the greatest novels ever written. I would not go that far. But the book overall is excellent. As is often the case I listened to the audiobook while simultaneously reading the book on Kindle. The narrator is Cassandra Campbell. The audiobook is as excellent, and is worthy of the writing. I have what I refer to as a "flawed inner narrator". As such the audiobook was really worth the extra expense to me. **** Above, I have tried to avoid references to the story, one may wish to skip the below until after reading the book. **** If one has already decided to read the book, one may wish to skip this part. I will try to remain vague. There were parts of this story the seemed unlikely to me. When one parent departs and goes to her family, they seem to make no attempt to find her children. As a grandfather, this is unthinkable to me. Supposedly there were some threats. That would mean nothing to me. There is also a violent felony mystery within the story. As a retired detective, there were parts of that episode that I found completely outside my personal experience. I am not saying the matter could not be resolved, but they did not even come close. It is not that really amateur hour police work never occurs, it does. But a case that weak does not go to trial, especially with the potential penalty involved. It was more like a civil trial than a criminal trial. I suppose those were the parts of the story that were most unrealistic to me and bothered me the most. It is the WRITING that I found most compelling. And most of the story is really quite good. ***** End of discussion of the story itself. ***** In summary, I felt this is a really great reading experience. I am so glad that I had a chance to read this book. I absolutely intend to read her next novel should there be one. As I compose this review there is no second novel of which I am aware. Should there be one, I will seek a copy immediately. Thank You...

Excellent writing. I could not put the book down and I haven’t finished a book in 3 years.

Received mine in good condition.

From the very first page I was intrigued by this little six year old girl Kya- known to the town folk as Marsh Girl. Her journey begins with a series of heartbreaking abandonments. First her mother walks out, then her siblings and eventually her father too. Left completely alone, Kya learns how to fend for herself, to cooking cleaning and even earning meagre wages selling mussels. She leads a life of solitude yet finds joy in feeding the gulls in her beach, collecting sea shells and mushrooms. She understands the marsh lands like her family. Her resilience, her shyness and indomitable spirit are truly inspiring. Then she meets Tate, a boy who loves the marsh almost as much as she does. He teaches her to read, write opening a new world that she has never known before. The narration flows across two timelines - one following the discovery of a dead body near the marsh and the second tracing Kya's life story. Ms. Owens language is simple yet evocative and the descriptions of each scene painted vividly. My heart ached everytime Kya started to trust and dreamed of a life beyond ber solitude. Every time she broke, she found the strength to start over again. This is a story that will stay with me for a long time. The plot thickens into a courtroom drama. But what truly left me whispering "incredible" was the ending - a subtle revelation that I didn't see coming, yet it left me smiling wide. Trust me, you don't want to miss out on this one!.

This is a beautiful though heartbreaking novel, packed with exquisite descriptive prose as it tells a shocking story of abandonment, neglect, survival, awakening and finally hope, and all woven around a murder mystery set in marshlands on the outskirts of a North Carolina coastal town during the 1950s and 60s. Kya is a shy, skinny six year-old when her mother suddenly up and leaves home - a tiny shack housing a handful of kids, a drunken husband and not much else. Within a few short months, all of Kya’s siblings have deserted her too, until it’s only this innocent little mite and her cold-hearted pa left - and even he’s only there intermittently when alcohol isn’t addling his brain and makin’ him ornery. For several years, Kya has to fight to survive on grits, a few mussels and not much else as she ekes out a living from the swamp she calls home. The novel’s pages are riddled with racial tensions and those age-old discrimations simmering between the rich and affluent and that ‘poor white trash’, while bringing to life a story about a young child surviving on next to nothing while harbouring an endless expectation that things will someday get better. Delia Owens’ characters were all rich and diverse, and each one made me either angry or grateful depending on their role in Kya’s unique and meagre life. Jumpin’ and Mabel brought a glimpse of hope and care into her sad, bleak existence, so much so, I wanted to climb inside the pages to offer them my thanks for seeing a need and doing their best to meet it. Then there was Tate - I fell in love with this young man right from his first entrance into Kya’s lonely world, despite his choice once he went away to college. A young man who was such a warm light in her personal darkness, and showed a kind and generous heart towards a neglected though resilient young child. Somehow he saw beyond this scruffy waif with nature as her only company - one who knew it’s intricacies better than most - and yet, as a teenager, still had no inkling as to what came after the number twenty-nine. Tate was a true example of being raised by caring parents who taught him to practice kindness, and most especially in one particular portion when Kya was coming of age. I wanted to give him a hug for his sensitivity and concern. He was the kind of friend everyone needs, especially a lonely young outcast. This was a book I didn’t want to end, although many times my heart ached for this precious little child/young woman alone in that desolate place. It is a heart-wrenching story, yet it’s also peppered with uplifting little nuggets just when you feel your heart breaking into tiny fragments from another of life’s bitter blows falling upon Kya’s scrawny shoulders. The author’s word pictures were exquisite and my soul eagerly gathered up all of those vivid images she made, like this one.... “She laughed for his sake, something she had never done. Giving away another piece of herself just to have someone else.“ And then there was this longer more poignant piece that had me wishing I was there to eavesdrop and watch everything from inside the shadowy overhang of a weeping willow... “Kya leaned closer to him, not enough to touch. But she felt a sensation – almost like the space between their shoulders had shifted. She wondered if [he] felt it. She wanted to lean in closer, just enough so their arms would gently brush together. To touch. And wondered if [he] would notice. And just at that second, the wind picked up, and thousands upon thousands of yellow sycamore leaves broke from their life-support and strained across the sky. Autumn leaves don’t fall; they fly. They take their time and wander on this, their only chance to soar. Reflecting sunlight, they swirled and sailed and fluttered on the wind drafts ... and the two of them leapt and skipped through curtains of falling leaves, reaching their arms wide, snatching them before they fell to the earth... As she ran back through them, they caught like gold in her hair ... the leaves rained and danced around them as silently as snow … He lifted a leaf gently from her hair and dropped it to the ground. Her heart beat wildly. Of all the ragged loves she’s known from wayward family, none had felt like this… And for the first time in her life, her heart was full.” (There are more magnificent word pictures nestled in between those ellipses, but I didn’t want to give everything away from this poignant piece of prose ... hopefully, this little skerrick will make you want to read it all for yourself!) Another portion that grabbed my heart was, “His eyes were the same as they had been. Faces change with life’s toll, but eyes remain a window to what was, and she could see him there.” The novel’s title sums up Kya’s raw way of life perfectly as the meaning behind the expression ‘Where the crawdads sing’ is ‘...far in the bush where critters are wild, still behaving like critters.’ I take my hat off to the author for writing this both tragic yet moving piece of perfection, and highly recommend it to everyone. Definitely a 10/10 from this awe-filled lover of words, and most assuredly one I’ll read over and over as long as I have breath to do so. It actually took far longer than expected to finish, but only because I wanted to savour every morsel - and some portions were read again and again to grasp every hidden facet purely for the gold found in each one.

Such an amazing story with all very strong characters. Covers a lot of sensitive topics but very nicely. Loved it and enjoyed it thoroughly