Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

This has got to be one of the worst books I have ever read in my life. I genuinely do not even know where to start. Is it the large age gap where one of them is literally 14? Or maybe comparing a white girl who choses to isolate herself with segregation? There’s also the issue of the racist caricatures of the few characters of color? I could use the fact that she steps on her entire point through the ending of the book. NOPE, that’s not even the worst part of it. The author herself is genuinely terrible. She was involved in what is *allegedly* a racially motivated murder in Zimbabwe and is advised by the American government to never go back because then the government there can question her about it, a fact she skipped over when discussing how fun it was sipping champagne on her trip.

The age gap between the couple is “only” three years, and would be okay if they were both adults, but considering Kya, the main character, is only 14 and her boyfriend is 17 when they sleep together, that is a completely different story. And the argument that it is that the story was set in the 60s, so it is okay, is bullshit. This book was written around 2018, when that is not an okay situation (age them both up by a year and it is illegal). In the book, he is seen as her savior and there is never once a mention that it is a problem. It is absolutely disgusting and I do not know why authors continue to get away with this even in 2023. 

I feel like the racism present in the book, and I do not mean historically accurate racism that people of color would have faced at the time but the racism embedded in the actual message given by the book, should be a complete red flag, but this is never even discussed when the book rose to fame. Kya, the main character, is a white girl who lives alone in the marsh because kids were mean to her on her first (and only) day of school. She isolated herself in the marsh, and then blamed others for her isolation. Several times throughout the book, she compares herself to the black girls who are suffering the effects of segregation. Never once does any of the black characters (because there are only black and white people in the book) correct her, and even go as far as to agree with her. This is not while she is a child either, but when she is an adult. The black people in the book have no access to the same quality of education because they are being systematically denied access to the same opportunities as white people. Kya does have access to that, but chose to run away when she was given that opportunity. And we are supposed to read that she is being oppressed, but also that she was powerful for turning away, all at the same time. At the end of the day, Kya is white, and that gives her so much privilege that Owens denies in her book. There are two main black characters, a husband and wife, and they both are caricatures. Specifically the wife, who is the definition of the “mammy” caricature, which was first used to justify slavery and then to show that black women were content to take care of white people.

Basically, this book has messages of racism and glorification of abuse from beginning to end. To top it all off, she steps on the point. The moment that Chase Andrews is found murdered, everyone immediately suspects Kya and she is quickly the number one suspect. *SPOILERS* She gets off, but it is then discovered that she was the one who murdered him, which subsequently proves that everyone was right about her in the first place. The ending makes no sense and is honestly so infuriating that I wrote an entire essay (6 pages) for my English teacher about why she should not ever force anyone to read the book again.