“Where the Crawdads Sing” is a North Carolina way of saying “Beyond the Blackstump” which would probably also be a good name for a book if it is not already taken.
Everything you need to know about the main character in “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens is contained within her deer analogy.
“Kya knew it wasn’t so much that the herd would be incomplete without one of its deer, but that each deer would be incomplete without her herd.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing
This is a ‘boy raised by wolves’ story but in this instance, Kya, abandoned and alone and lonely is raised by the marshes of North Carolina. What she knows she learns from the marshes, its patterns and flow, and its creatures.
Cross the marsh girl story with a courtroom drama and add a bit of a love story and there you have it, “Where the Crawdads Sing”. A page-turner with praying mantis, corn grits, seagulls and boats. Lots of boats.
There is so much food in Crawdads that “food in where the crawdads sing” is one of Google’s googling options and there are Delia’s own recipes in the book club notes. This is should be compulsory for every book ever published.
We had cornbread and southern fried chicken at our book club meeting. Pocket Bookclub did enjoy this book. And yet, we didn’t talk about it for long which says to me there wasn’t much to pick apart. This is not a deep book. There is a whodunnit mystery to keep you turning those pages and if you pay attention you may figure it out but still find the resolution satisfying.
“I wasn’t aware that words could hold so much. I didn’t know a sentence could be so full.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing
Do crawdads really sing? I will let you google that one yourself.