Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

 

Did this one as an audio book.

Kya (Kai-ya) is born in The Marsh with her parents (violent drunk dad) and 5 brothers and sister. Gradually by the age of 7 all her family leave, leaving her behind to fend for herself and survive alone. Which she does impressively but the town continues to ostracise her and treat her as sub-human. 

The book covers her trying to learn to have relationships and has wonderful descriptions of the marsh life. My favourite bit was how she learns about human relationships by the behaviour of the marsh creatures. Particularly the parallels between the science descriptions of the mating rituals of marsh creatures -

“Sneaky fuckers” As is well known, in nature usually the males with the most prominent secondary sexual characteristics such as the biggest antlers, deepest voices, broadest chests and superior knowledge, secure the best territories because they have fended off weaker males. The females choose to mate with these imposing alphas and are thereby inseminated with the best dna around which is passed on to the female’s offspring. One of the most powerful phenomena in the adaptation and continuance of life. Plus the females get the best territory for their young. However, some stunted males, not strong, adorned or smart enough to hold good territories possess bags of tricks to fool the females. They parade their smaller forms around in pumped up postures, or shout frequently even if in shrill voices. By relying on pretence and false signals they manage to grab a copulation here or there, pint sized male bullfrogs hunker down in the grass and hide near an alpha male who is croaking with great gusto to call in mates when several females are attracted to his strong vocals at the same time and the alpha is busy copulating with one the weaker male leaps in and mates one of the others. The imposter males were referred to as “sneaky fuckers”.

This, and the mantis description, becomes important later.

It's impossible to talk about this book without talking about the ending so read no further if you don't want spoilers

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So, the best way for me to say my feelings at the end of the book is to share the conversation me and my lovely friend had afterwards (I won't name her in case she doesn't want to be named!).

Me: "Finished the crawdads book. Absolutely loved it. I knew it would turn out to be either him or her (I thought, at one point, it might have been Tate and Jumping together) but I'm very glad it was her. After the bit about the female insects killing the males it was obviously heading that way and made more sense. I'm not sure of the practicalities of her doing it but I'm still glad it was her!"

Lovely friend: "Isn’t it funny... I had really mixed feelings about the ending because it was her😆 I loved the fact that she stood up for herself but I was gutted that the author went for the stereotype of the wild woman being true to type. I still can’t reconcile it now!"

Me: "I think I agree. I think what I mean is, if it was either of them I'm glad it was her and not him. Plus, the more I think about it, it sort of was against type because it was cold and calculated and premeditated and well thought out, not wild at all. If that makes sense?!
It would have been more satisfying if it had turned out to be Chase's wife. "

Of course, Lovely friend is completely right. I was glad she (Kaya) wasn't rescued/saved/avenged by a man but it does sort of reduce her to the very persona that the town think she represents. Even though the murder is coldly calculated and planned and not wild or emotional, it's still the behaviour of someone outside of civilised society. I'm not sure I'll ever come to a proper conclusion on my feelings about the ending!

Anyway, I sobbed when she died. Happy that she had a lovely happy life in the end, but really sad to say goodbye to her. I felt like she was someone I'd like to know.