5.0 out of 5 stars Singing the highest possible praise for Where the Crawdads Sing!

P.J. · September 29, 2025

(function() { P.when('cr-A', 'ready').execute(function(A) { if(typeof A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel === 'function') { A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel('review_text_read_more', 'Read more of this review', 'Read less of this review'); } }); })(); .review-text-read-more-expander:focus-visible { outline: 2px solid #2162a1; outline-offset: 2px; border-radius: 5px; } The Australian media broadcaster ABC through ABC Radio National, is currently asking readers for their choices for the top 100 Books of the 21st Century.Hundreds if not thousands of votes have already been received and avid readers are sharing their picks on The ABC Book Club facebook page.Having seen countless numbers of readers selecting Wherer the Crawdads Sing, I decided to buy it and am so very, very glad I did.It is beautifully written and a fabulous story about a young girl's unfortunate, dysfunctional family and her strength and perseverance in overcoming immense odds to not only reach adulthood, but become a shining example of never giving up.With a strong emphasis on preserving and appreciating the beautiful harmony of the environment, it gives an insight into the balance required for all lifeforms - humans included - in marsh/swamp/sea environments.The main characters are wonderfully crafted and they come to life throughout the book - which really was a page turner and hard to put down!I am feeling quite bereft since finishing it - it was such a thoroughly enjoyable, engaging book. It will be a very hard act to follow.Am hoping that Delia Owens writes more novels - I am very tempted to read her non-fiction books about her life as a wildlife scientistCan highly recommend it - would love to add it to my list of best 100 books of the 21st century - in fact I reckon I'd place it in the top 20!

5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging

J.M. · October 26, 2025

Now added to my list of favorite books. Was well written, very engaging with excellent character development and wonderful story.

5.0 out of 5 stars A solid five star read

M.D.T. · March 3, 2022

Count me among the thousands of readers who think ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ is a wonderful tale and a joy to read. Kya is such a delightful character. Abandoned by her mother at the age of six, she is both sweet and resourceful. Her father is the impetus for the abandonment, a wounded veteran of WW2, he tries to drown his problems in drunken rages. Kya’s Ma can’t take the abuse he dishes out anymore, and she leaves their home, a shack in coastal Carolina, behind. Eventually all the siblings also take off, one by one, for parts unknown and Kya must deal with her drunken Pa in the wild marshland. Basically, the little girl learns to fend for herself, growing up with the animals and birds as her tutors and playmates. She becomes known around town as the Marsh Girl.I enjoyed Part 1, where Kya slowly matures into a teenage woman. This is a little better than Part 2, where Kya has to endure the cruel prejudices and indifference of the townspeople. Both parts contain excellent writing, painting pictures of the environment with remarkable prose. But this book is much more than pretty words. The plot is captivating, drawing me in and pushing me forward to chapter after chapter with a curiosity for what will happen next. Kya finds love with Tate, only to be deserted by another that she cares for. She later finds love again, this time with Chase. But this time she is rejected in a different way, and she endures an atrocity that is both confusing and heartbreaking to her innocent mind. One of the best characters is Jumpin, proprietor of the wharf boat dock and friend to Kya when she was rejected by everyone else. Later, Kya tells Jumpin some of what Chase had done to her, and I thought he would come to her aid in Part 2. Perplexing. But the small holes in this story are easily overlooked. A solid five star read should induce emotions from the reader and in the best books the characters should make a real connection. ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ is populated by some of the most endearing characters that I have known.

4.0 out of 5 stars Easy, engaging read from beginning to end.

f. · August 24, 2024

“Go as far as you can—way out yonder where the crawdads sing.”I am fairly skeptical of those books that are very hyped up to the max and have high ratings galore with the masses singing their praises. I have gone into some of those books and felt quite let down and disappointed by the novel’s end. However, this was not the case at all with Delia Owen’s popular novel Where the Crawdads Sing, a novel that breaches into various genres and themes: coming of age, romance, mystery, courtroom drama.1969. The quiet, small North Carolina town Barkley Cove is astir and up in arms when one of its popular locals, Chase Andrews, is found dead. Suspected of the crime is Kya Clark, who has been dubbed the “Marsh girl” because she has isolated herself out in the marsh away from the town and the public.Owens formats this novel so we are constantly shifting around through the past and fast forwarding to various years, and this allows us to “fill in the pieces” of what has taken place in this small community. Through this structure, we get to see Kya’s childhood as well as the communities’ reaction to her and the choices she has made along the way.During the years in the past, we come to know that her mother left her at an early age and never came back, and her abusive father also left her, along with her brother, who joined the military. Left to fend on her own, Kya becomes resourceful and visits Jumpin’ and Mabel, a kind couple who own a store and become parental-type figures to help Kya survive and provide help. Kya also comes to know and be involved with two of the boys who are her age, Tate Walker and Chase Andrews, who form a love triangle of sorts and forms the basis for the mystery at hand.I think this book does have a few flaws, but I tended to forgive them because I just enjoyed pretty much everything else. I love how the author brings in love of the natural world and how Kya so readily identifies with this world as a source of comfort and means to escape. In many ways, the marsh itself becomes a character symbolizing the solace away from the town gossip.The author also delves into important themes such as isolation and fitting in and finding oneself. I like how she manages to put many of the pieces together to form a picture of the past and present.Overall, I was fairly pleased with Where the Crawdads Sing and will look into more works from this author. It was a very easy read that just flew by and was quite engaging from beginning to end.

5.0 out of 5 stars For a fast paced mystery this is a good story.

M.R.C. · September 7, 2025

This was an enjoyable read. i found it interesting to keep up with the story line.

Excellent!

P. · February 2, 2020

(function() { P.when('cr-A', 'ready').execute(function(A) { if(typeof A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel === 'function') { A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel('review_text_read_more', 'Read more of this review', 'Read less of this review'); } }); })(); .review-text-read-more-expander:focus-visible { outline: 2px solid #2162a1; outline-offset: 2px; border-radius: 5px; } Excellent writing. I could not put the book down and I haven’t finished a book in 3 years.

Good quality

C. · August 25, 2024

Received mine in good condition.

Definitely in the Top 5 of My Favourite Books

J.R.a.J.L.-.A.A. · August 31, 2020

This is a beautiful though heartbreaking novel, packed with exquisite descriptive prose as it tells a shocking story of abandonment, neglect, survival, awakening and finally hope, and all woven around a murder mystery set in marshlands on the outskirts of a North Carolina coastal town during the 1950s and 60s.Kya is a shy, skinny six year-old when her mother suddenly up and leaves home - a tiny shack housing a handful of kids, a drunken husband and not much else. Within a few short months, all of Kya’s siblings have deserted her too, until it’s only this innocent little mite and her cold-hearted pa left - and even he’s only there intermittently when alcohol isn’t addling his brain and makin’ him ornery.For several years, Kya has to fight to survive on grits, a few mussels and not much else as she ekes out a living from the swamp she calls home.The novel’s pages are riddled with racial tensions and those age-old discrimations simmering between the rich and affluent and that ‘poor white trash’, while bringing to life a story about a young child surviving on next to nothing while harbouring an endless expectation that things will someday get better.Delia Owens’ characters were all rich and diverse, and each one made me either angry or grateful depending on their role in Kya’s unique and meagre life. Jumpin’ and Mabel brought a glimpse of hope and care into her sad, bleak existence, so much so, I wanted to climb inside the pages to offer them my thanks for seeing a need and doing their best to meet it.Then there was Tate - I fell in love with this young man right from his first entrance into Kya’s lonely world, despite his choice once he went away to college. A young man who was such a warm light in her personal darkness, and showed a kind and generous heart towards a neglected though resilient young child. Somehow he saw beyond this scruffy waif with nature as her only company - one who knew it’s intricacies better than most - and yet, as a teenager, still had no inkling as to what came after the number twenty-nine. Tate was a true example of being raised by caring parents who taught him to practice kindness, and most especially in one particular portion when Kya was coming of age. I wanted to give him a hug for his sensitivity and concern. He was the kind of friend everyone needs, especially a lonely young outcast.This was a book I didn’t want to end, although many times my heart ached for this precious little child/young woman alone in that desolate place. It is a heart-wrenching story, yet it’s also peppered with uplifting little nuggets just when you feel your heart breaking into tiny fragments from another of life’s bitter blows falling upon Kya’s scrawny shoulders.The author’s word pictures were exquisite and my soul eagerly gathered up all of those vivid images she made, like this one....“She laughed for his sake, something she had never done. Giving away another piece of herself just to have someone else.“And then there was this longer more poignant piece that had me wishing I was there to eavesdrop and watch everything from inside the shadowy overhang of a weeping willow...“Kya leaned closer to him, not enough to touch. But she felt a sensation – almost like the space between their shoulders had shifted. She wondered if [he] felt it. She wanted to lean in closer, just enough so their arms would gently brush together. To touch. And wondered if [he] would notice.And just at that second, the wind picked up, and thousands upon thousands of yellow sycamore leaves broke from their life-support and strained across the sky. Autumn leaves don’t fall; they fly. They take their time and wander on this, their only chance to soar. Reflecting sunlight, they swirled and sailed and fluttered on the wind drafts ... and the two of them leapt and skipped through curtains of falling leaves, reaching their arms wide, snatching them before they fell to the earth...As she ran back through them, they caught like gold in her hair ... the leaves rained and danced around them as silently as snow … He lifted a leaf gently from her hair and dropped it to the ground. Her heart beat wildly. Of all the ragged loves she’s known from wayward family, none had felt like this…And for the first time in her life, her heart was full.” (There are more magnificent word pictures nestled in between those ellipses, but I didn’t want to give everything away from this poignant piece of prose ... hopefully, this little skerrick will make you want to read it all for yourself!)Another portion that grabbed my heart was, “His eyes were the same as they had been. Faces change with life’s toll, but eyes remain a window to what was, and she could see him there.”The novel’s title sums up Kya’s raw way of life perfectly as the meaning behind the expression ‘Where the crawdads sing’ is ‘...far in the bush where critters are wild, still behaving like critters.’I take my hat off to the author for writing this both tragic yet moving piece of perfection, and highly recommend it to everyone. Definitely a 10/10 from this awe-filled lover of words, and most assuredly one I’ll read over and over as long as I have breath to do so. It actually took far longer than expected to finish, but only because I wanted to savour every morsel - and some portions were read again and again to grasp every hidden facet purely for the gold found in each one.

Como poesia

R.d.S.F.d.A. · July 10, 2021

Ler a história de Kya foi belo e difícil. O estilo descritivo da autora me fez sentir muito próxima a Natureza de um lugar desconhecido, fascinante e solitario. Em alguns momentos a narrativa me parecia fantasiosa demais , embora tudo seja possível nesse mundo. Aos poucos fui sendo envolvida pela mágica das palavras e tocada por emoção. Os poemas citados colaboraram para que os capítulos finais fossem lidos com lágrimas contidas e a certeza de que valeu a pena insistir na leitura e de que gostaria que a autora continue a escrever romances , uma vez que até agora ela só havia escrito livros científicos.

Genial libro. Gran final

a. · March 27, 2023

Si aún no decides si ver la película o leer el libro, debes leer el libro. Te lleva de vívidas descripciones de escenarios naturales de la Costa de Estados Unidos junto con una historia con altibajos de emociones hasta el seguimiento de un juicio bien presentado y argumentado. Después de leerlo, estarás listo para la película.