Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens tells the story of Kya, beginning with when she was six years old living on the marsh in North Carolina. She has fond memories of her childhood on the marsh, until one day her mom abandons the marsh, leaving Kya and her six older siblings with their alcoholic father. One by one, each of Kya’s siblings take off too, leaving Kya alone with her Pa, forced to learn to fend for herself. In doing so, the townspeople start to talk about Kya, speculating and calling her names: “missing link”, “marsh trash”, and most commonly “marsh girl”. Kya doesn’t pay much mind to this, however, and eventually she learns to take her Pa’s boat out on the marsh to fish. One day she gets lost and meets a friend of her brother Jodi, Tate, who guides her back. Tate and Kya become friends later on, when he offers to teach Kya how to read. As they grow older, they begin a short-lived romantic relationship, until Tate leaves for college and breaks his promise of returning and visiting her. At 19 years old, she meets Chase Andrews, who takes her out on a picnic and the two begin a relationship as well. However, despite promises of marriage and a future together, Chase doesn’t introduce Kya to his friends or family, and it is revealed that Chase is engaged to another girl, Pearl, who lives a more “proper” life. When the body of Chase Andrews is found below an abandoned fire tower by the marsh, the town’s Sheriff launches an investigation into his mysterious death, with Kya as the prime suspect. 

In my opinion only, Where the Crawdads Sing was a good book, but I wouldn’t say it was a must-read by any means. I found it somewhat hard to get into at first, and it never really piqued my interest at all. In my opinion only, even though this book is supposed to be a thrilling, page-turning mystery, I found the plot to be pretty lackluster and the book was overall too long-winded to capture the attention of the reader for the entirety of the book. I don’t want to be entirely negative in my review, as I do think there were some interesting parts of the story, this book just simply wasn’t for me. I wish I could recommend it more, but I just feel like this book was not worth all the hype it receives. In my opinion only, if you really want to find out how the story ends, I would just save your time and watch the movie.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reed tells the story of Evelyn Hugo, a glamorous Hollywood movie star who has hidden from public life for years. She is finally ready to tell the tale of her scandalous life, and she chooses Monique, a practically unknown writer, to do so. Monique, utterly astonished by why Evelyn would specifically request her to write her biography, tentatively accepts the job hoping it will jumpstart her career. As revealed in the title of the book, part of the intrigue of Evelyn’s life is that she has been married a total of seven times. Yet, through their interview sessions, Monique finds that the one thing everyone wants to hear about the most may be the least interesting part of Evelyn’s story.

 

Evelyn’s married her first husband, Ernie Diaz, at the age of fifteen, wanting to get out of Hell’s Kitchen and move Hollywood. She was able to get some smaller roles, but once she died her hair blonde and divorced Ernie Diaz to publicly date other actors, she secured her first leading role. She eventually falls madly in love with Don Adler, another big actor, and makes him her second husband. However, their marriage takes a turn for the worst when Don becomes abusive, and Evelyn, still in love with Don and feeling embarrassed, goes to great lengths to hide this from everyone in their life. When Evelyn begins working on the set of the movie Little Women, she meets fellow actor Celia St. James but is threatened by the young up-and-coming talent. Eventually though, the two become best friends and hardly leave each other’s sides. To Monique, Evelyn reveals that among her seven husbands, she had a secret affair with Celia St. James for years. 

 

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is an easy read with a big reveal guarenteed to leave the reader aghast. The book perfectly captures the awe of the old Hollywood film era and all the behind-the-scenes drama and scandal that comes with it. Who would be able to put a book like that down? While there is a lot of hype behind this book, I do think it’s pretty deserved for the most part. Personally, I did not find the big “twist” to be as crazy as others have said, and I overall found the story to be a bit simple for all of the hype it’s been given. Still, I would definitely recommend this book, as it was an enjoyable read and I’ve yet to meet anyone who hasn’t had a positive experience with it.