Review: Where the Crawdads Sing

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Of the thousands of books I've read, this is easily one of the best. Definitely in the top 100 for me. It is unlike anything I've ever read, rooted in reality and the natural world, reminiscent of Annie Dillard's 'Pilgrim At Tinker Creek,' it's lush, sensual, lyrical. The words sing a hymn to our world and the people in it. The entire novel reads as a prose poem, every word delicate and powerfully compressed, as poems often are. It's as much an education of all in nature as it is a startlingly plot driven and propulsive read. Gorgeous languaging. Sometimes I'd come across a passage so incredibly beautiful, I'd catch my breath and put it down, face down, just to digest the sentence and allow it to rest on my soul. My heart expanded with this book. It's dark and sad, heartbreakingly poignant, and yet it is not dour or gloomy, not pessimistic. If anything, it's an ode to our s]resilience and to our spirit. How does a human being write like this? Delia Owns is a natural born genius.

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