I have a coworker that shares my love of library audiobooks that recommended this one to me. And although this isn’t my usual pick, I decided to give it a go.

Where the Crawdads Sing follows Kya Clark, “the Marsh Girl,” as she grows up mostly on her own in the backwoods marshes of North Carolina. The story follows her from age 6 to her 20s while alternating with the investigation into the death of popular townie during Kya’s adulthood.

Strangely, I don’t have a whole lot to say about this book. It was beautifully written, but slow, and I didn’t really fall in love with Kya in any way (although this might partially be because I found the narrator’s voice/accent for her to be a bit grating.) While I was rooting for her, I found it difficult to connect with her, and although I found the mystery of the death investigation interesting, I found the ending (though heavily foreshadowed) to be rather unsatisfying, and I guess I thought the themes to be kind of predictable.

If there’s ever a movie adaptation, I’ll pass, but I’d recommend this book to those that are interesting in imagery-rich prose that takes its time.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Nearly guaranteed to make you want to go get lost in nature somewhere.

Thanks for reading!