Where the Crawdads sing

[avrelia]

So I finished Where the Crawdads sing for my book club, and I am like "whatever". There was a lovely rhythm to the prose, but the marsh was much more real than the human characters there. (Or was it the point?) And I could easily believe all the bad things happening, but good things felt unearned. Horrific abuse, racism and prejudices - sure. Beautiful love story and financial success... eehh. Not that it couldn't happen, but it was so dreamlike I wasn't invested in characters after the childhood was over. And I wanted to be invested. I didn't dislike them, I just didn't feel them as grownups.

Comments

[shadowkat]

Had pretty much the same reaction to the book that you did. The prose was beautiful in places, the description of the marsh and the wildlife spot on. But the story, plot, and characters did not work at all.

[avrelia]

As I understood, the author is a biologist who used to write non-fiction, and this is her first novel, and I guess it shows. I am surprised at all the praise a little, but well, it's going to be an interesting conversation at the book club