Where the Crawdads Sing

1. General Impressions

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

• The ending of the book uses a classic plot twist to reveal that Kya killed Chase. Did this surprise you, or did you see it coming, and why?
• What do you know about the controversy surrounding author Delia Owens’s potential connection to an ongoing murder investigation in Zambia? Reliable sources, like The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, have published pieces on the similarities between this real story, which Owens has denied involvement with, and Kya’s fictionalized one. Does this history complicate the ethical framework of this book in any way?
• Where the Crawdads Sing is part romance, part drama, part mystery, part thriller, and part bildungsroman. Which of these genres do you feel fits the novel best, and why?

2. Personal Reflection and Connection

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

• Kya has a complex and reciprocal relationship with the natural environment. What is your relationship with natural spaces like? What emotions does nature create in you? Do you frequent the types of places found in the novel, or are you more familiar with other natural environments?
• Did you root for Kya? Did that change following the plot twist at the end of the novel?
• Throughout the novel, Kya navigates various natural and social environments and feels varying levels of inclusion and exclusion in those environments. Which types of environments do you feel most included or excluded in? Are there larger social systems—like in Kya’s case—that contribute to these feelings?
• What part of Kya’s story creates the strongest emotions in you, either positive or negative? Why?

3. Societal and Cultural Context

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

• Where the Crawdads Sing touches on how the criminal justice system treats disenfranchised individuals. How does the novel’s representation of this system compare to the contemporary American criminal justice system? 
• Consider how popular media with female leads (animated films, romantic comedies, etc.) portrays various rites of womanhood. How does this novel complicate stereotypical depictions of female coming-of-age? Do you think this portrayal is more or less realistic?
• Some have criticized Owens’s portrayal of the Black characters Jumpin’ and Mabel—particularly their phonetic dialogue—as engaging in racist stereotyping. What do you think about their portrayal? What are the ethics of a white author writing Black characters?

4. Literary Analysis 

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

• How would it change the novel if it were structured so that the reader knew Kya’s role in Chase’s murder from the beginning? How does the existing structure contribute to the work’s overall meaning?
• Why are the swamplands of coastal North Carolina vital to this story? Can the swamplands be considered a character in the novel, and if so, how are they characterized?
• The novel jumps back and forth between the murder trial in 1969 and various years in Kya’s past. How does this structure add to the unfolding of the novel’s mysteries?
• What does the shell necklace mean throughout the novel? Why is the shell necklace a verification of Kya’s guilt?

5. Creative Engagement

Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.

• Watch the film adaptation of this book. Was it a good adaptation? What was changed, and were those changes successful? Would you change anything the film didn’t or keep anything the film changed?
• Imagine how this story would unfold in a different time period. What would change in this version of the story? Imagine this scenario for several different time periods, before and after the novel’s actual temporal setting.