Number 40 - Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens

 

This month's book group book. It's obviously a popular choice - 5 million copies sold before this printing alone, and most book groups on Facebook, it seems to crop up in someone's listings at least twice a day.

Does it deserve the attention and the sales?

I think it probably does. But there are some definite flaws to the story. Unfortunately, some slight spoilers will be needed to say what these flaws are. I'll try to be vague as possible but you might want to skip this review if you don't want clues.

Kya is better known to the locals as the Marsh Girl.  She was abandoned by her family one by one until she was left alone living in a run down shack in the marshes aged about 9.  Since then she's fended for herself with only the help of one or two friendly locals - from the black people's side of town.  this story being set between 1953 and 1970, means it's deep in the American racist era.

As she grows up aloe in her run down hut, she catches the attentions of two local boys, one nice, one not.

The book opens with the not nice one found dead in 1969, before flashing back to 1953 when Kya's mother walked out.  the chapters alternate randomly between the sheriff's investigating the death, and Kya's growth from child to young adulthood. 

It's all very nicely written. the characters are drawn so well you can almost see them, We have full sympathy for Kya. We understand fully her first encounters with love from her two suitors. there's real tension in the scenes set in 1970. we don't want to see an innocent person suffer.

I really enjoyed this book and was ready to class it as one of the best I've read this year until the revelations in the final three pages which undermine all the messaging in the rest of the book. All the good work up until that point is spoiled.  And the worst thing is, it wasn't necessary.  They could have picked a number of other people, or just left it as a tragic accident and the ending would have been so much better.

It's Owens's first novel, so I will let her off on this occasion. It's a fascinating and moving read with a genuinely sympathetic protagonist. But she fluffs the ending so badly... it's worse the more I think about it. It doesn't actually make much sense as a solution to the events for several reasons.

a generous 7.5/10.  If I think about this much longer, that may slip