The blurb on the front of this book says it all in a nutshell: “Painfully beautiful…At once a murder mystery, a coming-of-age narrative, and a celebration of nature.”
In Where The Crawdads Sing, Kya Clark, aka the “Marsh Girl,” is the ultimate outcast. But she didn’t choose to be this way. Instead, family circumstance and society led her there. Innocent, curious, suspicious, eccentric, we follow Kya throughout her lifetime. We root for her, we feel her longing, we hope for changes in her life. Those changes happen in dramatic ways, which I will let you discover for yourself. Suffice to say, she is greatly influenced by how she is treated (aren’t we all?) This brings the nature vs. nurture debate to the surface and forces readers to reexamine relationships in their own lives.
This is a book that has been in my Wish List and Holds for simply ages. It was worth the wait. It’s amazing to think that this is the author’s debut novel. Wow.
I will add that Kya finds herself in some sexual situations of about a PG-13 rating. Her solitude and wildness also affect her language and manners. But nothing feels gratuitous. All of it is part of her story, and that story is gripping.
9.5/10 Stars
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