Where the Crawdads Sing is a triumph in the fictional coming of age story. Placing us in the middle of this insane upbringing in the marshlands of North Carolina, Kya is immediately abandoned by everyone she loves. Not kidding the first twenty or so pages are so painfully depressing. Kya was six when her Ma and four siblings left her due to their alcoholic father. A few years later Pa leaves her to fend for herself out in their shack. We follow Kya as she learns to become a woman in these insane conditions and as she matures we can never really lose sight of that brave little kid in the marsh. Unfortunately, to the town of Barkley Cove she is looked at as a monster which is contrasted so viciously to the Kya we know. It hurts because we know the real Kya, the one who loves all of the creepy critters in her marsh who become the only family she really knows. The murder of Chase and the relationship with Tate bring her adolescence into a beautifully real love story that ends in tragedy. As the second half of the book barrels into its breathtaking judgement Delia Owens picks up little shells and sea life that made up Kya’s life and drops them on the shore for us to examine. Seamlessly resurfacing the oddities that make up Kya’s coming of age we are left with a remarkably misunderstood life, and a powerful story of redemption.