"Where the crawdads sing" by Delia Owens: Review:

“I wasn't aware that words could hold so much. I didn't know a sentence could be so full.”

Where the crawdads sing is the story of Kya, a marsh girl, abandoned at the age of five, firstly by her mother, and then by her siblings, finding herself living with her absent drunk abusive father, and trying to provide food and all what they need, becoming an adult in a very young age. As she grows up, she will be bullied, judged, insulted and humiliated by her society. She will find her comfort zone in mother nature, specifically in the marsh where she will spend her time talking to birds, since she can be herself with them, not judged or humiliated. She finds in nature what she didn’t find in her family, and tries to fight her loneliness and the feeling of abandonment by learning more of the marsh and animals surrounding her.

As she grows up, she meets two men. One of them is Tate, her brother’s older friend, who showed her how to write and read. The other one, Chase Andrews, a football player, showed her happiness and brought her hope for a brighter future.

In 1969, Chase Andrews was found dead, and rumors have been circulating that it’s the marsh girl. Could she be the killer? Or was she judged like always?

Where the crawdads sing is rated 4,43 in Goodreads. Usually I’m afraid of this rating, because I did have bad experiences with some overrated books. I really did have high expectations for this one, and OMG it exceeded my expectations. This is without a doubt one of my favorite reads of 2021. This book is a mix of everything that I love: drama, mystery, crime and romance. The writing style exhausted me at first, and I really thought of DNFing the book, but then I started reading about the marsh and how it was described, I felt like I was there. The connection between nature and Kya was so beautiful. It felt like reading poetry.

Kya was a wonderful character. Reading about her life and what she endured broke me so many times. She is that powerful character that you wished she had a better life. Reading about the bullying, the judging, and her being the prime suspect in the crime investigation, because she was weird, was so enraging. Tate was so wonderful to her, even if he abandoned her, but he was the first character who wasn’t judgmental, and showed her the meaning of love.

As you may have noticed I read a lot of historical fiction lately, and it started to gain a little place in my heart. If you haven’t read this one, what are you waiting for? Read it, ASAP!