Where the Crawdads Sing

A base da história é ótima, mas a estrutura narrativa me incomodou em vários momentos. A inconsistência dos capítulos alternados, o mistério artificial que não condiz com a onisciência do narrador... Narrador esse que alterna seu foco no meio de capítulos sem motivo aparente. Acho que, em geral, meu problema com o livro foi uma falta de foco.

Apesar de tudo, sinto que há várias versões desse livro que eu adoraria. Consigo ver uma história com potencial através desses incômodos estruturais.

This had me for the first half. But I find literary dramas revolving around an “investigation/court cases/court rooms” tough on my enjoyment. It gets too close to real life in how evil and cruelty, hidden motives, nearly always outweighs the truth and results in little and laughable justice. But I'm a government hater through and through. Romance in this felt a tad awkward for me as well.

“A man doesn't set up a palmetto lean-to in a bog unless he's on the run from somebody or at the end of his own road.”

Well friends, I finished this book. This has been on my to-read list almost since it came out, but I always found reasons to put it off. That didn't stop so many people from telling me I should/need to read it, but that just sort of made me dig my heels in more. It had the dreaded “romance” tag on Goodreads, and those are always hit or miss with me, and that was a good enough reason to keep putting this off. Then my book club decided to read it this month and I ran out of good reasons to put it off, so I ripped the Band-Aid off and finished this in a few days.

I won't bother with a full summary, since there's literally thousands of reviews of this book that all cover the same ground. Suffice it to say that the first half of the book is Shy Marsh Girl in a Modern (for the time period) World, and the second half of the book is Shy Marsh Girl in a Mediocre Courtroom Drama.

If the book had been entirely composed of what was essentially the first half of the book, my rating would've been 4 stars at least. While it definitely had a slow start, I was drawn into how comfortable the writing was and how beautiful the marsh seemed. Kya had a rapport with nature that I found compelling to read about. Her brushes with the rest of the world around her usually went poorly, but she always seemed to rise above whatever hand she was dealt and come out the other side stronger and more skilled.

The first half of the book is told from a dual timeline perspective, and it is when these two periods converge (when Kya's story catches up to the secondary story being slowly revealed during her marsh life) that the book loses me. While I'm sure there's books where courtroom drama is compelling, this one didn't feel like one of those. The scenes felt flat, devoid of the charm and beauty of the first part of the book, and really felt so tonally different that it took me right out of the story. I finished the book, but ultimately left it feeling unsatisfied and wishing I had more time with Kya's story at the end, rather than a sudden and abrupt headlong rush and conclusion.

While it's clear there's many (manymanymanymany) people here who enjoyed it cover to cover, my enjoyment ended at the courtroom intrusion. I'm glad I finally struck this one from my to-read list, I'm glad I read it with friends, but I don't think I'll ever revisit it.

At first, I wasn't sure about this book. I listened to it from my Libby library. The performance is great, but I wasn't sure if I could stand the accents all the way through. But the story captivated me and the accent became secondary.

The quote on the front cover is true. It's a coming of age story, mystery, and an ode to nature all in one book. The writing is wonderful. Owens' description of the North Carolina marsh makes me want to visit it someday. Someone remind me to!

I loved the ending. I thought the mystery would be left unsolved, left to legend. But then that one piece of the puzzle fell into place. I called it right before it was revealed.

I read what I want, what I feel like and don't read books based on a book club pick or other hype. But I see why so many people rave about this one.

Wow, this one kept me interested THE WHOLE TIME. I got it on Audiobook from Libby and I listened to about 1/4 of it on the first day at work, and all night I was thinking about it. I finished it the next day because I literally could not stop listening. You feel like you live there with Kya. It's such a good character book and the development of Kya into the final character is so wild. The last chapter makes you love the whole trial aspect, even more, when you understand the characters so well and you get to see a whole extra side of them. This is apparently the author's first novel, and wow. I loved this book.

This also reminded me a lot of the book The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. Not the same plot really, but just the same kind of feelings while reading it. Overall, I recommend.

Incredible tableau of life in the 1960s southern marshes for the first half; the parallels between nature and human society with a slow-burning tension crackling in the air. Then, my heart ached for the entire second half. What an exceptionally written book with characters that live and breathe even after the last page.

Pros: great atmosphere when the girl is in the marsh (makes sense because the author was a wildlife biologist), she's easy to cheer for, great final dismount

Cons: The dialogue is terribly flat (she does write in an accent, which is actually fine, I mean the sentences themselves). In the first half of the book this is a smaller problem because it's mostly her in the marsh by herself, but then the second half is all a courtroom drama, and the dialogue can't carry the full weight of the plot.

It's framed as a love triangle for a bit, but then that gets resolved quickly. The formula of one part “kid survives alone” like Hatchet, one part “who will she choose” like Twilight, one part legal drama is just too any pieces for the delivery to pull off. A much shorter version that only focused on one of them would have been more successful.



I do want to say that it's great to see Delia Owens breaking into fiction. When real scientists start writing for broader audiences, and especially in new genres, it elevates science in the public mind and what people think science can be good for. (Mary Doria Russell is the other prominent example in my mind)