(***this review contains all the spoilers***)

Who read Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens? I’m pretty sure it’s most of you. It was the bestselling book on Amazon in 2019. 

I read the nearly 400 pages in 24-hours because I could not put it down. And then when it ended I wanted to call everyone I know who read it so we could talk about it. Based on its 33,000 five-star reviews, it’s having that affect on all of us. 

Owens kept us captivated with her beautiful prose. She painted a dream of a marsh in our mind’s eyes. The feathers, the shells, the gulls, the fireflies, the fog, even the smells came off the pages. And we fell in love with Kya. She became more precious to us on every page. Our hearts broke over the injustices she endured, and they swelled as we saw her care for herself and demand the dignity that is her—an every human’s—birthright.   

Kya was a fighter, wasn’t she? My goodness, that girl suffered so much. Her story was heartbreak after heartbreak and yet she marched on—and I think this is the key to the book’s popularity. She lost her parents, her siblings, her community, her dignity, everything. But she found a way to survive, to feed herself, to create a home, even to cultivate beauty, and forge a relationship with the marsh. She made a way for herself when it seemed there was no way. 

On New Year’s Day Beth Moore and Karen Swallow Prior (KSP) hopped on Twitter to share some of their thoughts about the book. Pointing out Kya’s scrappiness Beth said, “She went straight into survival mode and did what she had to do to be set free.” KSP responded, “I think this is precisely why this book has struck a nerve at this time. So many are in survival mode.” I totally agree. 

There is an unmistakable wave rising amongst women right now. It’s this growing acknowledgment of loss or abuse or exploitation—harmful treatment that was endured and perhaps formerly swept under the rug, but now demanding to be looked in the face. Whether it’s #metoo or #churchtoo or the loss of a parent through divorce or something else, there is a collective mood amongst women that pain was inflicted, and we want to deal with it, make it right, and finally move on. We see that in Kya. 

Kya not only survived mistreatment alone, she lived alone, made choices alone, and ultimately meted out justice alone. In every heartbreaking way, she was her own woman. She belonged to nobody. She determined her days, who could get close to her, and who would be rewarded or paid back for mistreating her. 

We want to be like Kya. We want to be strong, independent survivors. We long for self-sufficiency and control and justice. It’s the reflex of every human to hit back when someone else hits us first. 

In the delightful New Year’s Day Twitter exchange KSP concluded, “This book is an attempt at naturalism but demonstrates that it’s an incoherent worldview.” Yes. Let’s unpack that for a minute. Naturalism is a worldview that says nature is all there is—there is nothing spiritual or soulful or eternal about us or the Earth or the universe. Everything you see and everything you are is the result of natural, evolutionary processes. 

And that was Kya’s life, right? Relationships were removed from her upbringing. She was taught by nature: the marsh creatures and the water beyond, the seasons and patterns of her environment. So much of the book was about the beauty of the marshland and the processes by which the animals lived. 

You probably know that the author, Delia Owens, is herself a zoologist with a Ph.D. in Animal Behavior. She’s from rural Georgia and lived in Botswana and Zambia for a couple decades studying animals as well as participating in conservation efforts (more about that below—it’s surprisingly scandalous!). I think we were all transfixed by the pictures Owens paints. 

A major message of the book, then, is nature is all you need. Or biology is all that matters. Owens crafted a story whereby Kya rejected the Bible and Sunday school lessons she learned a little bit about as a young girl, and she mostly rejected the relationships in her life because they weren’t useful to her or they didn’t pay off. The animals and the water were her family, her friends, her teachers.

But even in Kya we see that nature is not enough. She has emotions and heartfelt, soul-felt needs. At first Jumpin’ is a means to an end for her—he’s the way she gets money to eat and survive. But she grows to love him and his wife like a mother and father. And of course she loves her brother when he returns and her heart is always, always broken for her mother. She longs for Tate the good guy and hates Chase the bad guy. Even the cat in the jailhouse shows us that nature is not enough: sure he’s a huge comfort to Kya in her isolation, but really she wants more, she wants freedom, justice, and to live happily ever after in a relationship with Tate. 

I’m not sure if Owens attempted to convince us that nature is enough and she fell short. Or if she planned all along to reveal that ultimately nature is not enough. I suspect it’s the first, based on her background and reverence for the natural world. 

The ending. Oh my goodness let’s talk about the ending. I don’t know anyone who saw that coming! I thought maybe it was Tate or Jumpin’ or Jodie. But never did I imagine that Kya took matters into her own hands and murdered the man who used her and tried to rape her. 

When I turned the last page, a huge part of me was like yes, girl. I was glad to see her rise up and deal out to Chase what he deserved. Good riddance. Killing Chase was like Kya getting the final say in her lifelong conversation with the whole town. It was like she was saying you all have been horrible to me and have hurt me and I hate you and I hate Chase and I have no use for any of you, so be dead, be gone, take what’s coming to you anyway. 

I think the book has spread like wildfire because women who have been hurt read that ending and rejoice and then tell all their friends about it. There’s a sense of vindication and survivors see themselves in Kya. She did it—she triumphed over her attacker. And so we read the book together and rejoice that good beat evil. 

But did it? Is the ending really that satisfying? 

Before answering that question, let me inject here that Owens and her husband and stepson were embroiled in a murder investigation in Zambia in the 1990s. Apparently while in Zambia studying and protecting wildlife, Owens’s stepson shot and killed an elephant poacher and reportedly her husband disposed of the body. Jeffrey Goldberg wrote all about it in “The Hunted,” a thorough recounting of the Owens’ murder accusation published in The New Yorker in 2010.

Eight years after writing the expose on the Owens family, Goldberg got ahold of Where the Crawdads Sing and said, “I have to say I found it strange and uncomfortable to be reading the story of a Southern loner, a noble naturalist, who gets away with what is described as a righteously motivated murder in the remote wild.”

This extra information is kind of creepy, don’t you think? Somehow Delia and her team have managed to keep the whole murder thing on the down low. But it feels like the theme of justified murder has probably been simmering in her imagination (conscience?) for years now. 

I mean, that’s what the book does. It makes the reader feel like murder is justified. 

Now I’m not speaking to a wide swath of ethics or Just War Theory or self defense here. I’m ruminating over the justifiability of a victim premeditating and carrying out the murder of her or his attacker. Is that legitimate and condonable? 

Simply put: no. Two wrongs don’t make a right. 

Chase is an evil man deserving of punishment, for sure. But Kya isn’t justified in being the one to deal it out. First, there are civic authorities in place who are entrusted with meting out justice. Civilizations have systems and order and hierarchies for this important role. And free societies have such systems set in place by the people, for the people. Just speaking in terms of creating and sustaining a livable community, it’s not ethical or helpful for people to take justice into their own hands, even in situations as terrible as Kya’s. 

And I know human institutions fall short—we have authorities who are biased, racist, sexist, classist, and unkind. But when citizens take justice into their own hands, it does not correct the shortcomings or misdeeds of those in power. Take, for example, the nonviolent protests of the Civil Rights Movement. These were an excellent way for citizens to demonstrate justice, push against wrongful laws and authorities, and make a statement without getting blood on their own hands. They stayed above reproach while powerfully bringing to the forefront of the American conscience the evils of Jim Crow laws. 

It may not fit the storyline, and it clearly would have led to a less-than-climactic ending, but in the real world I would advise Kya to go to the police to report Chases’s attempted rape. Yes, that would be hard and would require great courage and follow through, but so does murder, so I think Kya could have done it. In this way, she would seek justice and remain innocent herself. 

Second, whether Owens or her readers or any victim of any crime recognizes it or not, there is a God in heaven and he will bring about eternal righteousness and justice no matter what happens here and now (Psalm 103:6). This is not to say that we shouldn’t expend every effort to see justice appropriately and rightfully meted out here on Earth. Christians especially should labor after what’s right and good and true. But our efforts must be within the confines of Biblical ethics and ultimately we have to trust that God sees and God will deal with each and every one of us according to his perfect character. Romans 12:19 sums it up well, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’” 

Heaven and hell are real. The justified wrath of God is real. The blood that Jesus spilled on behalf of those who believe is real—Christians are people who know they murder in their hearts, if not with their hands, and they accept Jesus’s exchange of his righteousness for our sin with grateful and humble hearts. Perhaps it’s because we spend so much time fixated on the natural and the here and now, that we forget or minimize the horrific and eternal punishment that awaits murderers who don’t repent. But the Bible is clear: there is a hell and it’s described as a fiery lake of burning sulfur (Revelation 21:8), eternal punishment (Matthew 25:46), blazing furnace with weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:42), everlasting destruction shut out from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his might (2 Thessalonians 1:9), to name a few. 

Third, I doubt that the murder was truly satisfying to Kya. We are created beings, with life and breath in our lungs because our God gave them to us (Acts 17:25). We humans are unique and special amongst all creation because of God’s image in us (Genesis 1:27). Even though Kya was isolated and without much spiritual instruction, every human knows something of God, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them” (Romans 1:19). 

Indeed, the pain and horror she felt at being victimized and also the anger and fury she felt as a result, are both evidences of God’s image in her. Her spirit longed to be treated well and her spirit thirsted after righteousness and justice because of the God who made her. This was intuitive and subconscious to Owens—she knew that to create a human character is to create someone who knows what’s right and what’s wrong. We all do. Our consciences bear witness (Romans 2:15); it’s how we were created. 

In the end, I believe Kya felt let down, unsatisfied, even guilty herself. We see evidence of that because she hid her crime, she kept it secret, even at the possible expense of life in prison or a death sentence in the electric chair. Had she felt totally justified and satisfied she might have declared her deed with confidence, believing that whatever the judge and jury decided didn’t matter because she did the right thing.  

Fourth, murdering one’s attacker is not the actual hard work required by survivors who want to move on. Sure, it made for a fireworks ending and a temporarily good and carnal answer. But in the real world, survivors who want to go on are faced with a lifetime of nightmares, anxiety, depression and even substance addiction, self-harm, and suicide. 

In the real world survivors who ultimately thrive are women and men who identify and share what happened to them, who seek help and therapy and the unconditional love of friends and family willing to walk the highs and lows of healing with them, who daily wake up and decide to live again rather than give in to the darkness forced upon them, who hourly renew their minds to what’s true about God’s sovereignty and mercy even in spite of the evil that happened to them. Surviving is the hardest, grittiest work I know of. It looks nothing like a quick murder under the cover of darkness. I can’t help but think of all the survivors who have read the book and are now nursing murderous fantasies rather than giving all of their emotional energy to the labor of real soul-deep mending. 

Phew. Well, this review got weightier as it went on. I wasn’t fully expecting that. After giving it all this critical thought, I like the book less than I did when I started writing this review. Owens wrote a captivating tale, that is for sure. And when I read it, the ending felt triumphant, but not quite right. Now that I’ve really examined why it fell short, I’m reminded of what is good and beautiful and true and the ending of Where the Crawdads Sing is not. 

I know Owens is a secular writer in a secular world full of secular readers. Maybe it seems off or a waste of time to apply a Biblical worldview to a worldly book. But we must read with discernment. I want to apply a Christian lens to all that I ingest, taking every thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:5) and avoiding captivity to a false philosophy or empty deceit or human tradition (Colossians 2:8). 

If 1 in 4 women suffer abuse, then it really matters how we shape our thinking in this area. There’s a reason this book has been a New York Times bestseller for over a year. We like vindication.

Once again, I find myself wanting more for women. We all rejoiced and ate this story up and told our friends about it because we saw in Kya some of the good things we want to see in ourselves: strength, independence, and self-determination. But in the end, Kya, and so many of us, are far too easily pleased with a quick fix wrought with our own hands. In this instance, the slow, hard work of bringing the abuse into the light, handing the perpetrator over to the authorities, resting in a sovereign and good God who will bring about justice, and seeking healing from the true Healer via means of therapy and support and more would be better. If you are Kya, seek help from a trusted Christian friend who can walk with you through this process. Vengeance is not yours. It will not satisfy.

As my friend pointed out, we need Jesus to come and make it right because we cannot make it right on our own. We all fall short and we all need a Savior. We are rightly angry over the sins committed against Kya, but how much more angry should we be over the sins committed against our perfect and holy God? 

Kya exchanged a life for attempted rape. As much as we hate Chase, this was unjust. Only God is just—only his character, his laws, his measuring stick are perfect. We need his standard, his Word, his Spirit to show us what is right and what is wrong, because we can all justify murder based on our own context or story or feelings. Chase justified rape. Kya justified murder. I justify a hundred sins a day. 

Praise God we have a Savior who is merciful and just and was willingly murdered for us, because we are murderers ourselves (2 Corinthians 5:21). What a ridiculous and scandalous gift—he gives us his righteousness and perfection for our sin. In his laid-down life, we get abundant life (John 10:10).

Our Creator and Savior wrote the best story and he invites us in. It’s the story of grace and forgiveness for every sinner. What if Kya had experienced this kind of redemption and true healing? What if she had acknowledged Chase’s sin for what it was, but also acknowledged her own? What if she had run into the arms of her Maker and Savior, experienced his forgiveness, been filled by his grace through faith, and then extended forgiveness herself? This would have been real, true, eternal freedom. 

And I’m not suggesting it wouldn’t have involved her going to the authorities, testifying against Chase in court, and putting him in prison—these are good and righteous deeds too. But if she had done them from a place of rest—a place of trusting a sovereign God, a place of communion and wholeness with her Creator—she would have experienced real, lasting freedom. She wouldn’t have had to bear any guilt, or bury any secrets. She would have been really free. 

In Christ alone our hope is found. In him alone we get true and lasting refuge (Psalm 16:1). He restores our souls and our bodies and comforts us (Psalm 23:3, 4). Our God wrote the very best story, with the very best ending. My prayer is that all of us Kyas and Chases (for we are all both) would receive the invitation to be written in. 

Author’s note: special thanks to my friend LF for thinking through all these issues, pointing out some things for me to consider, and proofing all 3,193 words of this review that was meant to be a brief musing. What a gift to write in community. Thank you, L.