Review ebook Where the Crawdads Sing

9/8/20 note: Dear Goodreaders, If you loved this book, I’m very happy for you. As a reader and also somebody who works in the publishing industry, I want all readers to like or love as many books as possible, so the fact that you love this book is, in my opinion, a good thing. If reading a review that does not agree with your opinion enrages you, don’t read this review. I do not believe there are spoilers in my opinion, but a couple of commenters think there are. So if you have not yet read this 9/8/20 note: Dear Goodreaders, If you loved this book, I’m very happy for you. As a reader and also somebody who works in the publishing industry, I want all readers to like or love as many books as possible, so the fact that you love this book is, in my opinion, a good thing. If reading a review that does not agree with your opinion enrages you, don’t read this review. I do not believe there are spoilers in my opinion, but a couple of commenters think there are. So if you have not yet read this book, you may not want to read my review. I read it quite a while ago and have moved on to many more books that I’m more interested in. So I won’t be joining conversation in the comments. If you disliked this book, you may enjoy having some company in your opinion. -Betsy Robinson

The Review (November 18, 2018)

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Normally I would not finish let alone review a book I disliked as much as I did this one, but since I bought the book and am reading it for my book club, I’ve decided to say what I think:

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I found the writing of this romance/murder mystery to be painfully split—almost as if there were two different authors: an experienced one for the vivid narrative and an amateur for dialogue and character development (which in fact may be the case, since the author’s an experienced nature writer and this is her first novel).

The story is told in two time periods: Young Kya, left alone in the marsh to fend for herself, starts the story in 1952; and police investigate a murder in 1969. The opening lyrical descriptions of the swampland and inner thoughts of the swamp kids had soul—I loved, felt, and smelled the land, sea, air, and dense plants. But when people started talking, the writing became stilted, overwritten, and unbelievable. This happened in the earlier time period with Kya and a boy and the boy and his dad, and same thing with the 1969 police dialogue. The kids’ scenes had an after-school TV special sound and the police scenes sounded canned, like a marshlands-of-North Carolina version of Law and Order, where exposition is awkwardly inserted to move the story forward or there is overwriting that takes away from what could have sounded more authentic to the region. For example, a deputy says to his sheriff:“I’m hungry. Let’s go by the diner on the way out there.”

“Well, get ready for an ambush. Everybody in town’s pretty riled up. Chase Andrew’s murder’s the biggest thing’s happened ’round here, maybe ever. Gossip’s goin’ up like smoke signals.”

“Well, keep an ear out. We might pick up a tidbit or two. Most ne’er-do-wells can’t keep their mouths shut.”(61)Why not just, “I’m hungry,” and cut to the wonderful description of the Barkley Cove Diner and the scene of people gossiping about the crime?

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In real life, people do not say everything they’re thinking or narrate everything that’s happening or is going to happen. In fact, most of us lie about what we really think—if we are even self-aware enough to know our subconscious thoughts. Leaving out thoughts, leaving gaps in truth, and trusting the characters a writer has created allows subtext and real character to drive things forward. There is none of that here.

I found the character development absurd: Simply put, there are no authentic, complex characters. Kya starts as a believable swamp rat, which is inconsistent with what we learn about the derivation of her parents. Her voice is unbelievably inconsistent throughout the book. Then there are the two one-dimensional romances, one of which allows her to learn to read at age 14 and grow into an educated, sophisticated, poetry-reciting biologist, knowing lyrics to songs she never would have heard, etc., and the other, a sexual relationship where she doesn’t even think about getting pregnant although she seems to have learned all her biology from the esoteric scientific texts she reads.

I finished this book by skimming large sections, starting at page 164 when the entire plot became apparent, sans an end-of-book twist which was intellectually fun, but just as unbelievable as the manipulations of Kya’s character.

Sorry, friends who adore this book, I’m an outlier on this one, I guess. …more

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