Where the Crawdads Sing...Guest Blog


Hello 1000 Bookies
We have a new guest blogger. It is my pleasure to announce another guest blogger for the sight. My cousin, Mr. Steven Lampe has joined Reading 1000 Books as a regular Guest blogger. Steven is one of my heroes and I am very glad to have him join...

 Where the Crawdads Sing, a Review
by Steven Lampe
'Crawdads' is a wonderful book. It is an ode to loneliness, perseverance, and amazing accomplishment. It is essentially the story of Kya, a poor girl abandoned first by her mother, then her siblings, then - almost thankfully - by her abusive father. She learns to survive in a shack in a marsh with no heating or plumbing and carve out a solitary existence. With the help of a few kind marsh neighbors, she finds ways to feed herself, get around in a boat and finally learns to read. She eventually overcomes all to become a very impressive and accomplished woman. The overriding theme is loneliness. Kya continues to overcome, but only wants friendship and love. The star of the book is clearly the writing. Delia Owens style is hard to categorize. Spare like Hemingway and yet so unlike him. Barely topping 300 pages, a less restrained novelist could easily have exceeded 1000. Owens packs so much meaning into every sentence. She can describe a trip to town in five sentences. Yet, it is perfectly clear what happened. You somehow know who she saw, how they behaved, what she bought and how she got there. It felt like a magic trick (for example, she could write this post in 10 words and I bet you'd know everything you needed to). There is more to the book, of course. A parallel plot covers a marsh murder. It's in fairly "whodunit" style, but again with prose unlike any crime novel you've ever read. To complete this outstanding book, a great twist at the end had me shaking my head and laughing at how Owens strung me along. Brilliant. So. I loved it. Take your time, it is too easy to turn all the pages and be done in a day or two. Stretch it out, enjoy it, let it take you away to the marsh and live there awhile.

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