Where The Crawdads Sing
"For years, rumors of the Marsh Girl have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life-until the unthinkable happens."
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens completely and utterly enthralled me. I had found this book in a time of my life where I, much like the main character Kya, felt misunderstood and isolated. Delia Owens takes this very specific, painful, and uncomfortable feeling to the extreme in Kya; describing careful beauty that can only be cultivated in such an environment.
Kya represents the most fundamental and primal parts of humanity. She is, after all, the Marsh Girl. A local legend; something akin to a witch living within the marsh. She is entirely alone, finding solace in nature. She is astute, fiercely intelligent, artistically gifted, yet unmistakably wild. I saw myself in her, felt her losses as my own, and understood her. Her appreciation of nature as her greatest ally and friend reminded me to do the same. It inspired me to appreciate this big wide world we call home, but it also reminded me of profound feelings of isolation.
I felt her dizzying pain when she was accused of murder, having the whole town damn near convinced she had done it. The outcast often does make a worthy scapegoat for such things.
The way the novel is constructed is genius. The first chapter describes the crime, taking place in present day. The second begins Kya's earliest memories of childhood, and the novel continues with these two timelines until they converge near the end. It makes for excellent building of suspense and, when the time comes, a worthy conclusion with no loose ends.
This novel consumed me, and it is one where you will not feel the same after finishing it.