Where the Crawdads Sing

By Delia Owens

“Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.”  (From Amazon)

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What happened at book club…

First book club of 2020! We were just getting the discussion going at 20:20 2020 …. ooooohhhh spooky. There was a consensus at tonight’s book club, mostly. Most of us thought that Where the Crawdads Sing is a wonderful read,  full of characters we really liked – who live in a warm place! Yes that place is a marsh, and there’s no food, and Kya is really lonely and has to hide a lot – but still, it’s waaaaarrrrmmmm!!  – unlike Michael Crummey’s poor abandoned youngsters in the The Innocents…

The story is engaging and beautifully told with lots of unexpected twists and turns. We were impressed with the author’s knowledge of nature and the birds, fauna and flora that live in the marsh. We were even more impressed (said with a 😉 ) with Kya’s ability to transform from  (1) an illiterate foundling to published author and poet (2) a child hiding behind rocks to a young woman getting the deed to many acres of land  (3) a scared victim in the woods to an old man on a late night bus …  she’s quite the chick, that marsh girl.

We loved the murder mystery element of this story and felt the ending was exactly right, with a few little unexpected surprises. But there were other stories that kept our attention… Kya and Tate’s love story, the mystery of missing Ma, Sunday Justice the courtroom cat, the poetry – what’s up with it?  and Chase Andrews…ugghhhh…knob.

We had lots to talk about tonight! African adventures shared with loved ones, skeets who secretly search out random text books to scribble in, the big debate – to (yellow) highlight or not to (yellow) highlight, salt piles + backhoes = youtube magic! Myths and mystery around the menstrual cycle, the dangers of spending the night in a senior’s home.

The book had some real competition for top billing. Our host laid out quite the spread for us. It was fabulous and so very much appreciated. The best part? .. she introduced us to … wait for it… CHOCOLATE PIZZA!!!!! OM friggin’ G! deadly.  And if that wasn’t enough we each went home with a fun custom-made book mark. Some night wha’!

Happy New Year … hopefully the whole year is as kick-ass as tonight! It was awesome.