“Where The Crawdads Sing” has been on my to-read list for a couple of years now, but I quickly moved it to the top once I saw that it was being made into a movie. I have heard so many good reviews about this book and I think that I might have been worried that it would not live up to the hype. I was afraid to read it and for it to disappoint me. However, when I read this book I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Somehow I managed to not learn a single detail about the book during the time that it was at peak popularity, so I actually did not know anything.

I do not fully comprehend my reasoning for loving this book, yet I just know that all the different aspects of it just clicked for me. Within minutes of starting the book, I could tell that this was going to be a good one. 

The first aspect that really stood out to me was the timeline, because the book hops from a crime that is introduced at the beginning of the book that took place in 1969 to follow the main character’s life before that event. This way of storytelling managed to really hold the suspense and kept me invested as I read because I would get interested in different situations in each of the two time periods. 

Although, the biggest feature of this book that I appreciated, and perhaps the biggest reason why I enjoyed this book so much, was the way that the author, Delia Owens, was able to address so many themes in the novel. It was able to accurately challenge society’s treatment of socioeconomic outcasts, the respect and value of nature, the different parts of isolation, and the idea of what being educated means. I have not read many books that have incorporated any of those issues into the plot, yet “Where the Crawdads Sing” included them all. I think the way that Owens is able to do that was because the themes flow so much into one another, but that actually makes the book somehow more compelling.

While from the beginning I could tell that I was going to like the book, my faith in the book wavered near the end because I felt like the story was not going to be satisfyingly tied up into a nice little bow without any frayed ends like I wanted. However, I ended up being pleased with the ending, and I think I am more picky about the endings in books than anything else. Through and through this was a very good book that I will think about in the future in bits and pieces; it is just one of those books that will stay with me forever.

“Where the Crawdads Sing” is also being made into a movie that will be released in July. For me, the book lived up to the hype of being rapidly popular, but will the movie live up to the book? My first impression from the trailer is that it might do just that. The setting is highly important in the novel and based on the clips in the trailer, it seemed to paint a beautiful picture of the great story that was told in the book.

Additionally, the actor they chose to play the main character, Kya, seems spot-on with what I pictured in my mind while reading. I have slight concerns about the props and wardrobe not fitting the vibe of Kya’s character and her lifestyle. Overall, I think that the movie has a good amount of potential from what I have seen and I hope that it lives up to that. The movie is never as good as the book, but in this novel where the setting is so important, maybe it stands a chance?