Where Crawdads Sing
Rating
9/10 An enjoyable novel that’s both a crime story and a philosophical reflection on what loneliness does to human psychology. I think the popularity of this book comes down to the fact that both of these stories are well written and skillfully intertwined. You don’t find out the result of the crime story until pretty much the last page, and the reflection on loneliness and human hardship keeps you wanting more throughout the book.
When I was thinking about what I am taking away from this book, the main idea was that loneliness is a type of addiction. The main character had to grow up alone and take care of herself because her family abandoned her. She never integrated into the village society that was living nearby house. As she got older she envied the others that had friends and education, but she was physically and psychologically unable to break the barrier that separated them. She became addicted to spending time alone. Even when she saw Tate, her friend, somewhere in a distance, she would more often than not just hide in the bushes and spy on him. She was addicted to spending time alone, despite the fact that it was hurting her, both in the moment and in the long arc of her entire life.
Synopsis
Kya, an isolated girl living in a marsh behind a village is convicted of murdering Chase, the local superstar quarterback and womanizer. She is the main suspect because her whole life she has been an outcast who didn’t fit into society. However, Chase had an affair with her several years back and it didn’t end too well. The story follows Kya from her early childhood when she was abandoned by her family, through her adolescence when a local boy Tate taught her how to read, to the current time, when she is a well-known march encyclopedia author and now also a main suspect in a killing of Chase Andrews.
Notes
What I liked:
- good balance of description and story development
- nature-based theme
- several concurrent themes (a crime mystery + a deep philosophical story about human nature)
- pace of the book (nor too fast, nor too slow, I didn’t encounter a passage where I desperately wanted to skip ahead)
What could have been better:
- the descriptions, although good, were sometimes a bit too flowery and pretentious for my taste
- the ending was a bit rushed, some 40 years passed in 2 pages