Kya is a girl who grows up alone because she is abandoned by everyone. Her father is abusive and this affects her mother so that she eventually leaves. She doesn't ever really recover from having her mother leave her, and eventually we find out that her mother never recovers from abandoning her children. No one really knows Kya. Even the people who do get close to her don't know her. She protects herself because of all the people that leave her. People make judgments about her and don't really ever give her a chance. It's heartbreaking to watch her endure the scorn from other people. Her ability to make sense of people through connections to her understanding of nature and animals is amazing. She has enough skills to survive on her own, but growing up so isolated really becomes a problem for her that she never really gets over. This was particularly interesting to think about in the midst of the pandemic right now where maintaining connections with people is not easy.
The wonderful thing about Kya is she really teaches that we can all do so much more than we think we can do. When things get really difficult, we usually find out we can do way more than we realize we can do. Kya pulls off everything she needs to do. She's witty and gritty and she gets it done.
When I finished this book I had just had to sit with the feeling it left me. The ending is a surprise and made me feel like I needed to sit and be in it for a while longer.
This book reminded me of so many other books. It's a little bit like
Hatchet because she has to survive on her own. It's a little bit like
Tara Westover in Educated because her father is abusive and her family abandons her and even though she never goes to school, she learns to read, one day writes books and earns an honorary degree. It also reminded me of
Looks Like Daylight, which was full of stories of First Nations kids and their connection to the land. It also has a murder trial just like To Kill A Mockingbird.
Meaning of the title:
when Tate and Kya are looking for a place to hang out, her friend, Tate, suggests that they go somewhere “where the crawdads sing.” He explains to Kya that it means “far in the bush where critters are wild, still behaving like critters.”
Goodreads says:
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.
Perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Karen Russell, Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.
Spoiler alert:
Why did Kya keep the shell necklace?
The shell necklace that Kya gives to Chase becomes a manifestation of the dissonance between her desire to be loved and her wariness to let other people into her life. ... However, Kya ends up putting the shell on a necklace that she later gives to Chase as a gift.
