BOOK
REVIEWS
from our
Book Club
Where the Crawdads Sing
Written by Delia Owens
Reviewed by Tine H.
young Kya lives with her dys-
functional family in the marsh.
The elder siblings, and also the
mother, leave and young Kya is
left with her deeply alcoholic fa-
ther — until he also disappears.
The Book Club decided to read
Where the Crawdads Sing, first
published in 2018 which has pro-
ved to be quite a phenomenon
among book buyers. It has re-
mained high on the bestseller lists
and as of January 2020 it still tops
the NYT bestseller list (so far 71
weeks on the list!). Reese Wither-
spoon has secured the film rights.
So — we wanted to get on board
and see what all the fuss is about.
The story is a murder mystery
set in two time zones - the trial in
the late 1960s, and all that hap-
pened previously leading up to
the trial. The story begins in the
early 1950s in a fictional North
Carolina coastal town where
28
The Clubs within Our Club
Kya learns at a very early age to
fend for herself, and life in the
marsh is all she knows. She has
limited contact with the sur-
rounding world, but does have a
few friends in the nearby town.
Fast forward, and Kya is a stun-
ning young woman, still living
by herself in the marsh, and
with not one but two love inte-
rests, one of whom is murdered.
Author Delia Owens is a zoolo-
gist and uses great detail to de-
scribe the marsh and the animal
life in it. As we discussed the book
and our impressions, it was soon
clear that most of us found this
coming of age-book almost tri-
vial, to a point where the charac-
ters and plot were implausible.
In addition, we found the prose
somewhat lacking, except the de-
scriptions of the marsh. We are a
tough group to please, and with
a biologist among us, it was poin-
ted out that there were some in-
accuracies in those descriptions
as well. But we mostly all agreed
that we were happy to have read
the book so that we could chime
in with our opinions together
with millions of other readers.
“Maybe a book for young
teenagers...? The premise is
unrealistic, and the prose
is at times unbearable.”
- Tine Hestbaek
“Where the Crawdads Sing
is an easy read romantic
mystery that may leave you
wishing for more depth
on the romance and the
mystery.”
- Anne-Marie Suriano
”Where the book lacks in
plot ‘believability’, it makes
up for in it’s accurate
description of the coastal
Carolinas!”
- Pafget Lütgerath