Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (Historical fiction)

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens is about a girl named Kya who lives in the marshes outside of Barkley Cove, a town on the coast of North Carolina. The book is set in the 1960s, and centers around two story lines, the first being Kya growing up isolated in the marsh. Kya is isolated not by any fault of her own, but by the circumstances surrounding her life in the marsh. The second story line, which begins in 1969, focuses on the investigation of the murder of a boy in Barkley Cove. Kya is the prime suspect for the murder and Delia Owens does a fantastic job of jumping from one story to another in order to build suspense and create sympathy for Kya throughout the novel. The novel appeals to readers who like historical fiction and coming of age novels, and focuses on the theme of isolation quite a bit. Additionally, the book has great descriptions of nature, especially from the viewpoint of Kya, who has lived in the marsh all her life. The characters and time period the book is written in is handled adeptly, with the vast majority of situations that occur in the book seeming to occur organically and realistically.

In Where the Crawdads Sing, I liked the way that Delia Owens handled storytelling and characterization and how Delia Owens intertwined the two stories she wanted to tell while keeping the pace up for both of them. Both stories were compelling, with Kya growing up taking more of the spotlight than the story of the detectives on the case. Additionally, Delia Owens' description of nature was great as she combined scientific facts about the marsh with descriptions of the beauty contained in the marsh. In addition, Delia Owens did a great job of making the descriptions of the marsh seem as if they were coming from Kya, with the descriptions being a mix of utilitarian and poetic. I did, however, feel that the book sometimes would include sections for the sake of being artistic rather than for the sake of storytelling, something that I thought detracted from the story Delia Owens was trying to tell. Additionally, some parts of the novel did drag, with the pacing of both stories being quite slow until a decent bit into the book. Readers who enjoy coming of age novels, historical fictions novels, and to some extent, murder mysteries would enjoy Where the Crawdads Sing.

Reviewed by Ray M,. 11th Grade