Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens is one of those books that has stuck with me for weeks after reading it. I recommend this coming-of-age story mixed with a murder mystery.
Kya’s family has abandoned her in their remote shack in the North Carolina swamp in the late 1960s. This ten-year-old’s struggle to survive in the harsh swamp tugs at the heart-strings, while the reader is also delighted by the marsh’s beauty as seen through Kya’s eyes. Her life is hard, but Kya values the marsh, she understands it, and living a simple life in nature suits her. Most of Kya’s experiences involving the nearby town are negative, so she remains reclusive out of self-preservation. Known as Marsh Girl, no one in town cares about the well-being of this wild child.
Kya grows into a young woman with a natural beauty that catches the eye of two boys from town. Tate Walker gradually earns her trust and friendship until he abandons her to attend college. Kya longs to connect to someone, but being immature both in social norms and in love, Kya get used by Chase Andrews. Then, when Chase ends up dead, Kya becomes the number one suspect.
Where the Crawdads Sing is both a New York Times Bestseller and a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick. Reese loved the book so much, she is going to produce the movie version along with Lauren Levy Neustadter. Fox 2000 owns the rights. It is still too early in the process to know who will be cast in the film or when it might be released, but as of fall 2019, Owens stated the screenplay’s first draft was nearly completed although she couldn’t comment on who was writing it.