"Where The Crawdads Sing" (best selling novel)

Cafe Society
1

I realize it’s been out for a while, but it was a #1 best-seller for months and months, and I finally finished reading it a couple days ago. Of course, I didn’t read reviews until afterwards, but for me, I agreed with a lot of people who said that for the last half of the book, they figured out all the plot twists many chapters before they happened.

Not sorry I read it and don’t wish I had that time back, don’t get me wrong! I really did enjoy her colorful writing style.

So, what did other Dopers think?

2

I see nobody replied, but I’m currently post-diving on myself for something else, and found this, ahem, knot. Anyway, a movie is coming out soon.

3

I thought it was very well written.

4

I liked the way she immersed me in the locale of the story, and I did have some sniffly moments, but over all it was so implausible I can only shake my head. And her brother returning was played as some great moment, honestly I’d have hit him with a frying pan for leaving a child alone like he did.

5

I’m going on a river trip next week and have been looking for a book to read for down time in camp. It’s been much harder than I anticipated – I swear to God, between finishing my MA and not having library access my desire to read is all but dead. I thought about this one and indeed it’s on my Goodreads wish list.

Maybe I’ll go ahead and order it to read on my trip.

6

I thought it was mostly good; seemed more suited to the YA crowd. I didn’t really enjoy the endless descriptions of . . . everything, but especially the contents of her books. Actually, I think it might make a better movie, if done well. I think my problem with the book is that there are some good story elements, with the girl’s early years and the mystery of who killed Chase but it got bogged down with overlong passages about the surroundings and the birds and the water and the sand and the sky of many colors, etc., etc., etc . . . . …

7

At our old place we were friends with someone who is very close to the author. Very close.

So people like Mrs. FtG who got suckered into reading the book had to be quite careful in talking to them about the book. How this got to be #1 on the NYT list for ~29 weeks is baffling.

8

I hated it. Only read it because my book club picked it.

9

A surprising number of people thought it was a biography, and have even talked about wanting to visit Kya’s grave! (Probably the same people who thought “The Da Vinci Code” was real.)