My biggest problem with Where the Crawdad’s Sing

Submitted by Paleomedicine t3_zkqon1 in books

Spoilers for those who haven’t read the book, I will be referencing the ending.

I just watched the movie for this book and I thought it was overall an okay adaptation and the scenes for the most part seemed to hit the high notes of the book.

That being said, I still have the same issue with the ending of the book as the movie.

I don’t believe the book should’ve ended with a definitive verdict that Kya killed Chase. I understand it was set up and that’s it’s seen as a part of nature in the marsh and that she was smart about how she planned it out. But that being said, it should’ve ended after the courtroom where the lawyer gave his monologue about “the Marsh Girl.” They could’ve still had the “not guilty” verdict but I wanted it to be ambiguous. That way you could have people try to figure out their own interpretation of the ending. Does the marsh girl of these tall tales exist who would be capable of killing one of the town’s respected members? Or was she misjudged her whole life and abandoned and set up by a town that’s had no love for her?

I don’t know, I just feel like it would be more impactful if we didn’t know that she truly killed her and it was up to the audience/ jury to decide.

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lyrasbookshelf t1_j0154i9 wrote

I personally don't like open endings and would have been really disappointed. The whole point was that she felt one with the marsh and it's creatures, who do what they must to survive.

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jefrye t1_j013ml7 wrote

One of the defining features of the mystery genre is that the mystery is solved at the end (just as one of the defining features of the romance genre is that the couple is together and happy at the end). An ambiguous ending wouldn't have gone over well with most readers and would be a marketing nightmare. If she'd wanted to do that, she probably would have had to market it completely different (maybe as lit fic?) with rewrites to match.

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[deleted] t1_j02azm6 wrote

I may be in the minority but I disliked the ending, not because I wish it was open-ended, but because I wish Kya had not done it. I felt like so much of the book was not just about the marsh and about the need to survive, but also about empathising with Kya, loving her for who she is. That ending, to me at least, went against that, by making her appear to be a lot more cold-blooded than I thought she was, murdering less out of self-defence and more out of vengeance, or if not that then at least hiding it well enough to lie to and get acquitted by a court of law. I get that she had no choice but still, I felt this was thrown it at the end to respect the rules of the whodunnit, it didn't feel natural to me, and it went against who I felt she was. I saw some disagreements on that on other threads too, happy to hear opposite opinions 😊

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Calamity0o0 t1_j03wosx wrote

I felt like it was more self defense. Chase never would have left her alone, he had already attempted to rape her, what would stop him from escalating to murder? Instead of waiting for him to come attack her, she created a situation that she was in control of. I felt it aligned perfectly with who she was, a survivor who since childhood was determined to live and fend for herself.

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[deleted] t1_j040n23 wrote

Those are actually some very good points, thank you. I may have to read it again considering the ending, to see if my initial view of it survives a second read.

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lucy_valiant t1_j01p1y6 wrote

I think your suggestion of leaving it open-ended is a good one, FWIW, but I honestly thought the whole book was trash, so it’s hard for me to say that this one change would have made a significant difference in quality. The author zooms through the whole trial and seems to care so little about it, that the whole “guilty, not guilty” question is rather moot to me. It isn’t as if there’s a ton of focus on evidence and debunking evidence and debating the method of debunking, the lawyers going back and forth. There’s just an occasional testimony, some light cross-examination, and then Kya zones out again, so the narrative stops tracking the courtroom events. The question of whether she killed Chase is apparently unimportant to the author, so its resolution was unimportant to me as a reader.

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team_lambda t1_j012gec wrote

But, she didn’t kill him according to the verdict, if I remember correctly?!

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Paleomedicine OP t1_j0136iv wrote

The verdict was not guilty. I’m saying the ending of the book where you find out that she did actually kill him shouldn’t have been included. It should’ve been left ambiguous.

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Swimming_Badger760 t1_j01k1xp wrote

Do you often read novels from the mystery/crime genre? I'm curious if you feel that way about others too.

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minimalist_coach t1_j02qn9d wrote

I actually liked the ending and I feel like there were a few parts of the story that lead us to that ending. The whole female firefly lures potential mates to their death. I also think the whole town underestimates her intellect and the ending proved how she outsmarted them all, while her choice to stay silent allowed her to not lie.

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futerminator t1_j05l4m9 wrote

This is what OP has missed. Acting like the female firefly is what gives Kyra strength to lure him into her trap. He was never going to leave her alone

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minimalist_coach t1_j07qv54 wrote

I'm not sure if people are missing it or just want to not think of Kyra as a murderer. I've seen this type of post a lot over the past several months, I avoided posts about the book until I read it last spring.

I see Kyra as someone who took her cues from nature and decided she couldn't rely on anyone else to solve her problems, so she took care of business and was intelligent enough to do it without suffering the consequences of man's laws.

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Calamity0o0 t1_j03vw3q wrote

I thought the ending was more satisfying the way it was. I would have been pretty disappointed if we never actually found out.

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Itsybitsybabynurse t1_j05fwjo wrote

I think it also gave that 😳 factor. Fairly certain those around me heard a huge gasp and OMG from me when I got to that part. I honestly don’t get that struck while reading as I did when I got to the end.

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Orbeef t1_j04df3m wrote

Crawdads. It's not possessive. Just like in the title of the book and the movie.

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