"Where the Crawdads Sing". ***SPOILERS***

[raccoon]

I was number 200 and some on the library‘s request list until I was able to borrow this book from a friend.

I managed to hold out through part one. After that I just flip the pages so I’d see how it came out.

There are too many unbelievable things in this book. A six-year-old kid is abandoned by her family and is able to live alone in the marsh for years and years. She does have some interactions with people such as selling her mussels and fish that she catches to locals.

But it’s way too unbelievable to me that she would survive to adulthood without having an accident or having any medical attention. Or starving. Or getting illnesses the people Got at the time such as measles. Or stomach flu. Or even plain old diarrhea. A little child, unattended, could easily die of dehydration. She does get a nail on her foot but miraculously doesn’t get tetanus.

Over a period of about 12 years, she uses her father’s fishing boat and it never needs repairs over all those years. Nor does the shack she lives in start to leak and fall apart or need any other kind of repairs during that period.

As a young adult, Kya doesn’t act real weird as a person who was so isolated probably would act. She’s a little bit of a loner but she manages to adjust pretty well.

I can’t imagine why this is a best seller.

[CommonSenseMom]

1. Haven't read it yet, but

I do have it on my nightstand, in the TBR stack. I might move it down a couple notches now.

I had the same reaction/bewilderment when I read 'All the Light We Cannot See'. Great premise, considering it's set during WWII, and that's been done, and done, and done. But the author did find a new way to see it & I loved that. Loved the characters. BUT - hated the 100-150 word long sentences. Some were so convoluted, I had to go back and analyze what the heck was going on.

And - the author seemed to phone in the ending. It was awful. A terrible let down. More of a quick summary, really - almost as if the author was up against a deadline and just didn't know how to end it. So, like you with Crawdads, I cannot figure out why this book was sooooo raved about.

Sigh. Rant over.

[rainy]

6. I absolutely loved all the words in All the Light We Cannot See. All the incredible metaphors!

I relish in well written sentences.
I feel the same way about the ending

[Callalily]

2. The key word is "fiction".

Yes, clearly unbelievable circumstances, but it did make for a good tale.

[Freedomofspeech]

3. I am with you one this one...

As a retired librarian, I obviously read quite a bit. I get that it's fiction but I just could not relate to anything in this book. I too am shocked that it became a best seller.

[WhiteTara]

4. The only book I hated more was

Bridges of Madison County.

[raccoon]

5. I didn't care for that one either. Nt

[rainy]

7. So true. No way anyone who was aware of her situation would have stood by and let her live like

that. So unrealistic.

[The Blue Flower]

8. Stopped reading halfway through for those reasons

I grew up in central Florida at a time when most homes didn't have a/c. The snakes, the mold, the insects, the disease resulting from them are very real. Yes, it's fiction, but it isn't science fiction.

[still_one]

9. Good book. Highly recommend

[CrispyQ]

10. I enjoyed it in spite of some believably issues.

What sealed it for me was closer to the end of the story the man that she liked, noted that "she feels life more closely because there are no layers between her & the planet." When her family was there, they didn't buy much from the store at all - they fished, hunted, & had a garden. They lived closer to the land than most of us do.

But I thought the end was great! I was not expecting that! I thought Alwayswearspearls was the murderer. She was mentioned a few times early in the book & I think she was a vic's wife. I was so sure of it.

[unc70]

11. Grew up in supposed locale -- awful book

I was given this book by my friend. She loved it and thought I would since I grew up along the NC coast at that time. Wrong! I hated it; only finished it because of her. Almost nothing in this book factually represents coastal NC during that time. Every page or two there is something so glaringly wrong it made me question whether the author had even visited the region.

First of all, the coast described is unlike anywhere in NC, the vegetation is wrong, and the barrier islands are missing. It seems more like Georgia. And she mixes up freshwater and saltwater species and has the habitats wrong.

She fails geography, too. People keep running over to Asheville like it was the closest city. It actually was 7-8 hours from the nearest place on the coast. There is a trip to Greenville, NC. From the hotel names it seems she had it mixed up with Greenville in SC. None of the bus routes would work with appropriate timing from anywhere on the coast. And BTW guys rarely took a bus to Chapel Hill; we all hitchhiked.

No one would build a fire tower on a point into the ocean. Usually placed about ten miles inland

Getting electricity and indoor plumbing would have taken a much bigger effort. And the boat would have needed a license. And so much more.

But the big things that are missing are hurricanes. The book starts in 1952. As 1954 arrived, I expected a dramatic event. Nothing. No mention of Hurricane Hazel! Hazel is an iconic event in NC, destroying everything in its path. It would have destroyed the cabin and most everything in the village. There were three more hurricanes in 1955.

None of this addresses the incoherent behavior of the characters in this mess. This book has many flaws typical of a first novel: a too-clever-by-half plot, the alternating time settings, and an ending one can see for half the book.

Oh, we mostly call them crayfish or crawfish, not crawdads.

[raccoon]

12. Thanks for your post. I grew up in lowcountry SC

And that Didn’t even occur to me about the hurricanes – – but you are so right. I remember hearing of Hazel. But the one I really remember is Gracie 1959. Knocked down several trees and knocked our power out for three days and I’m guessing we were about 40 miles inland as the crow flies.

[japple]

14. And YES to Hurricane Hazel. I grew up in tidewater VA in the 1950s and Hurricane

Hazel is a vivid childhood memory.

[japple]

15. And I think crawdads is what they are called in Louisiana, and

down along the Gulf Coast.

[japple]

13. I didn't even last one chapter. Having lived in NC for 25 years although in the mountains,

we did spend time in many other parts of the state including the Outer Banks. Even if I hadn't lived there, I would have found the book totally unbelievable for exactly the reasons you mentioned. A friend of mine who lived in the region that was the setting for this book had the same reaction. Even fiction needs to feel believable unless it's fantasy or sci-fi. And even those books that have a magical imagining, such as those of Alice Hoffman or Sarah Addison Allen, need to seem/feel like it could happen.

[mainer]

16. So interesting. Haven't read it, but wondered at its bestsellerdom.

Interesting take on a book that the critics seem to love.