Where the Crawdads Sing

When Reese Witherspoon selected Delia Owens’s debut novel for Reese’s Book Club in 2018, it became the darling of voracious readers everywhere. Now, the actor is developing it for the big screen. Daisy Edgar-jones, experienced in bringing contemporary literature to life having starred in Hulu’s adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People, plays the protagonist, Kya. Abandoned as a child, Kya survives in North Carolina’s marshes on her own with her fishing and foraging skills, receiving no help from the townspeople who regard her an almost mythic figure. Slowly, Kya enters both society and young adulthood, modernizing her relationships and way of life bit by bit. But all that progress is threatened when she finds herself in front of a jury who still calls her “Marsh Girl.” (In theaters July 15, 2022) —MR