Where the Crawdads Sing: Reese's Book Club

This book blew me away. It was nearly perfect in every way. This is probably one of my top ten favorite books of all time. Delia Owens is an amazing author!

I really enjoyed Where the Crawdads Sing. The writing beautifully balances melancholy with inspiration and the descriptions of the marsh were so vivid I could picture everything like a movie. I listened to the audiobook and it really brought the story to life. Kya’s story is one of loneliness, abandonment, survival, courage and persistence. I felt sad for everything she went through but I was also inspired by her strength and determination to follow her passion despite being judged and misunderstood by others. A beautiful, emotional story that I would definitely recommend.

CW: Racism, domestic/child a*use, and r*pe.

Uh oh… I may get heat for this… But, I kinda hated this book. I’m sad about it. But I truly, truly hated it.

I wasn’t a big fan of the writing style, which I hoped I could suck it up and push through because I wanted to believe all the hype and reciprocate all love this book gets regularly. The story/writing felt like it was going through some sort of identity crisis and didn’t know what kind of book it wanted to be which I think also added to my initial dislike. None of the characters did anything for me except frustrate me or annoy the hell out of me; everyone felt only half fleshed out and not complete/round characters.

I wanted more of the true crime part of this story that the summary somewhat promised me and the only reason I’m not giving Where the Crawdads Sing less is because the last like 50-75 pages picked up and built up to what the kind of story that I was WANTING to read for the entirety of the damn book. The story was slow, boring, repetitive and a lot of it was just… unnecessary for me. It felt like I was reading one of those “Award-Winning-But-Vastly-Boring-and-Self-Important” kind of books written decades prior that I was assigned to read in my high school honors English classes and I also hate that. Ironic, as I teach Language Arts as a day job.

So, for many reasons, Where the Crawdads Sing really didn’t do anything for me except vastly disappoint and bore tf outta me. Whelp. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Delia Owens depicts Kya & the marsh so vividly — the imagery flows easily through your mind, making this book a joy to read. I loved picking my way through this novel, even after I’d watched the movie & knew what the ending would be.

I made the mistake of listening to this book on audio, and I just could not enjoy the narrator’s voice, but after picking up the book, I did enjoy the story more.