Where the Crawdads Sing is not the typical book that I read. My cousin recommended it to me after I told her I liked reading romance, so I picked it up at my local library. I thought I'd be able to get it on hoopla to read on my Kindle but the ebook was not available from my library. Since this isn't the typical book I read and review, I thought I'd write my observations about it down as I read and share them in blog posts. This is Part One, which covers my thoughts/observations from Chapters 1 - 8.
Funny observation: You know you like reading on your Kindle when you get to a word you don't really understand and you think, "Oh, I'll just place my finger over the word and Kindle will give me a definition!" Can't do that with a paperback! LOL
Characters: The two primary main characters in this story are Kya Clark and Chase Andrews. Kya Clark is the female protagonist. Nicknamed the "Marsh Girl", her family is known for living out in the swamps. When Kya is only seven years old, everyone but her father abandons her. Chase Andrews is a former pro football player who has a reputation with the ladies. Delia Clark uses two storylines to tell this story; (1969) the murder investigation of Chase Andrews and (1952) Kya growing up in the swamp.
Timelines: The timelines don't have a rhythm. Usually, if there are two separate timelines I would expect either a character to be introduced in one and then we meet them again in the other timeline, or they do something of importance in the other timeline. Or one character receives or finds an object that becomes important in the other timeline. Delia seems to be just telling the stories in two different timelines. She'll write for a bit about Kya's time growing up in the swamp and then jump back into the investigation. Having no rhythm between the two storylines prevents the story from flowing seamlessly.
Pacing: As any young child growing up in the swamp would do, Kya likes to explore and Delia spends a lot of time in the beginning describing the scenes around Kya. While it's good for the reader to know, so they can visualize the scene, I thought it drug the story out. I found myself falling asleep a lot when trying to read through those scenes. The murder investigation scenes move pretty well along so I'm hoping the story will pick up soon.
These are just a few of my observations. I am intrigued as to how this all wraps up so for now, I will continue to work my way through the book. Once I get a few chapters read, I'll come back with another installment of Observations While Reading.
Have you read this book? What did you think? Do you agree with my observations? Do you disagree (and if so, why?) Leave your comments below and let me know your thoughts.
Thanks for reading!