Review of Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
I blame Where the Crawdads Sing for throwing me off my reading game this month. It was so disappointingly bad that I had a hard time picking up another book for several days after finishing it. I don’t understand how this has received so much praise.
We’ll start with the things I liked. At times, the narrative flowed well. Specifically, the descriptions of the food Kya makes/eats are well written. After the second mention of corn cakes I actually jumped on Pinterest and searched for a recipe. Turns out, the author includes a recipe for Ma’s Breakfast Corn Fritters in her Book Club Kit. They’re DELICIOUS!! Check out my post about them here.
Aaand…that’s it. I don’t really have anything else to say about this book that is positive.
Although I was initially drawn to young Kya, I ultimately found her (and the rest of the characters) boring and unbelievable. I never felt myself connecting with the story; it was predictable and the surprise ‘twist’ at the end was overly foreshadowed. I had to take several breaks while reading just to keep up the motivation to finish it.
Did I mention the characters were boring?
We were given three main characters (Kya, Chase, and her first love Tate), and unfortunately none of them were well-developed. They felt hollow, making much of what they did and say feel either implausible or forced. The romances were both super awkward and didn’t seem organic or passionate.
The book ends with a “twist” that, again, was so foreshadowed that there was no shock to it (i.e. she actually did kill Chase). However: I was surprised by how little remorse she felt. And by little I mean zero. She felt zero remorse for killing another human being. It’s pretty gross, actually.
This was clearly not for me. I wish I hadn’t finished it; I feel like I wasted my time.
3/5
Oh my gosh, I just read your review and I had to laugh so hard!!! I love it whenever you’re looking for something nice to say, you go back to food 😂 you already know my thoughts on this book but it was so funny to see your thoughts written down. THE ENDING WAS SO OBVIOUS!
My mom recommended this book to me a few days ago. She loved it and is going to talk about it in her next book club, but the synopsis doesn’t seem like it would be for me. I know it’s received a lot of praise, so it’s refreshing to see someone talk about its faults as well. Great review, Joey! Sorry this didn’t work out for you.