A review by bhnmt61
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

3.0

I loved the first half of this book with its (somewhat improbable) story of a young girl left to fend for herself in the marshland of the outer banks of North Carolina. The descriptions were terrific, and--happily, since I am not a big fan of nature writing-- never overdone. But Owens is not particularly good at dialog, so once Kya starts interacting with other people, the story gets a little clunky. Add to that a long, long courtroom scene toward the end (a personal peeve of mine), and I have to say the second half didn't live up to the promise of the first. Also I felt like she abruptly changed the personality of the murder victim, presumably so that the reader would feel like he deserved to die. And that’s just so morally problematic all the way around. All in all, this felt like an Issue of the Month book, a book written to capitalize on an issue that currently has a lot of buzz and emotion around it. Same reason I quit reading Jodi Picoult. It's not that they're bad books, it just feels manipulative and a little opportunistic to me. My unpopular opinion.