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.