Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

 Where the Crawdads Sing

by Delia Owens

When Kya Clark was a little girl her mother walked out on her family and never came back. leaving Kya and her siblings with their abusive father. One by one the siblings, much older than Kya, leave as well. Her brother Jodie, seven years older than Kay, tries to stay to protect her, but even he ends up leaving. Her father stops coming home and eventually disappears as well, leaving Kya all alone in the marshes of North Carolina, a stone's throw from the ocean.

Kya spends her time foraging for food and collecting bird feathers. She finds a way to make money through the local African American gas, food, and small items vendor named Jumpin. Jumpin and his wife decide to look out for Kya and help her with clothes and food.

Kya becomes legendary in the small town as the Marsh Girl, elusive living removed from society on her own. Kids periodically come around and she hides from them, observing them and longing to have connections like they do. The people in the town look down on her and treat her like trash when she ventures into town for supplies. Kya only finds a connection with a boy Jodie's age named Tate, who has been leaving feathers for her. The two exchange gifts in secret until one day they meet. Tate teaches Kya to read and write and the two eventually fall in love, but Tate leaves too for college. Kya doesn't think she can ever forgive him.

While he's gone one of the town boys, Chase Andrews, starts coming to the marsh to see her after the two of them make eye contact while she hides from him and his friends. She falls in love with him even though she suspects he only wants one thing from her. He makes all sorts of promises to her and she gives in to him. He even promises marriage. Then she finds out his promises were lies and the two fall out.

A few years later Chase turns up dead, found by some local boys, his body appearing to have fallen from a fire tower. No prints of any kind can be found, but through a series of testimonies the local Sheriff believes that Kya is responsible for the death, and that is in fact a murder. She eludes the police for a while.

Tate returns and begs forgiveness, but she refuses to grant it. He tells her that her artwork of her collections could be published and helps her to make that happen, which makes Kya somewhat wealthy and well-regarded in the wider world, but the town still treats her like marsh trash.

When she is arrested a court drama ensues where the prosecutor and the defense attorney plead their cases with the death penalty as the result of a guilty verdict. Tate returns again and pledges his devotion to her.

This story was told in duel timelines, one leading up to the present and the other in the present where Chase has been killed. I enjoyed that back and forth. The writing was beautiful, particularly the nature descriptions and Kya's relationship to the marsh and her love for its creatures. However, the dialogue felt unnatural to me. Most of the dialogue read like a young adult or even younger book, with far too many proper names in it.People don't generally say one another's names when talking to each other. Most of the story was predictable, but I was pleasantly surprised by the ending.

Where the Crawdads Sing was a real exploration of loneliness and isolation, trust and prejudice. The nature versus nurture them was also evident as well as the connections we make to others, the land, and to our families - the fragility of those connections, and the long-term effects of abandonment on a child. I liked the book a lot. Because of the dialogue issues and the predictability, I have to give this book 4 stars.