Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Over the summer, I started reading the book Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. It is a story based on a real-life murder mystery regarding the main character Kya. I’ll make sure not to give away any spoilers, but I just wanted to talk about the portrayal of Kya and the way the supporting characters help characterize her. Evidently, circumstances and customs were different back in the 1950’s/60’s. Women were known to cook, clean, have and nurture children, and maintain the family and home. In the story, Kya’s mother leaves her and eventually she is left to fend for herself. You can sense the feeling of vulnerability Kya must have felt as a young girl living alone in a marsh with an abusive father who eventually leaves, but as she gets older her femininity blooms. As two boys are romantically involved with her, you can see the difference between how they treat her. One guy respects her and her boundaries and truly understands who she is while the other uses her and treats her like nothing and in the end even hits her. This stark difference between the treatment of Kya in the book, I believe, implies the true reality of the treatment of women around the world even today.