Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

How does hype affect your reading experience? I like to know next to nothing before starting a book, which can sometimes be challenging on #bookstagram. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens has been a hard book to miss this past year, and when I finally got around to reading it for book club, I was a little anxious. So many people online and IRL had hyped this book to me that I felt like maybe my expectations were too high. This book is stunning. It is beautifully written, thoughtfully paced, and like the marsh, full of secrets, if only you know where to look. I blew through it in the better part of a day and found myself marvelling at Owen's masterful storytelling. I was particularly surprised by the parallels to To Kill a Mockingbird: the character dynamics; issues of class, race, and education; themes of loneliness and isolation; the southern small town setting and the tormented recluse. The educator in me thinks that these would make great paired texts! 😂 I don't want to say too much, so I'll leave it at this: if, like me, you've been living under a rock (or perhaps just a toppling TBR pile), I suggest you make time for this one.⠀