Reviews with content warning for Gaslighting - Where the Crawdads Sing

I honestly just can’t with a book that’s placing itself so heavily in the real world with (may I add, absolutely beautiful) descriptions of nature with obvious scientific roots… and then the main character is such a painfully unrealistic Mary Sue.
A certain degree of it is normal if not enjoyable, but the dual description of someone who is basically feral and yet looks conventionally beautiful, teaches herself to do an untold number of things from books alone and seemingly never needs medical help or anything of the sort? I just couldn’t hold off the disbelief.

The fact that I trudged to the end of this book is due to the aforementioned beautiful descriptions of marshland, and a personal insatiable curiosity when it comes to whodunnits. I would honestly say the ending was the worst part of the book though, not for whodunnit but just the fact that it felt very forced and rushed.

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kaeschwalber's review

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challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

I really love this book. The setting was excellent and beautiful, the mfc was relatable and realistic, pacing was great, plot twists were incredible.

One this I absolutely hated was that the main love interest (Tate) was pedophilic. We only see it (in my opinion) in his age difference, the conversation he has with his father where he talks about how he is specifically attracted to her innocence and purity, and some controlling behaviors when it comes to her other relationship. She has a history of being abused and from the outside does seem very uninformed and potentially easy to manipulate. Together these redflags were screaming at me the rest of the book as her relationship with Tate develops. This made his character unrealistic to me as I could not understand why a man who was so attracted to her innocence and controlling of her external relationships could partner with a girl that he did not think could or would protect herself without exhibiting other serious forms of control and abuse.

Finally, the black character in this book absolutely fit into the traditional architype of "only exist to help the white protagonist". The do not have their own plots, beliefs, or goals outside of helping the main character.

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