Where the Crawdads Sing
A coming-of-age murder mystery set in 1950s-60s North Carolina about a girl who raises herself alone in the marshes after her family abandons her. The book carries strong content across several categories, including explicit sexual scenes, a depicted sexual assault, sustained domestic abuse, and child neglect woven throughout the narrative.
Chapters to know about
Kya, aged six, watches her mother and then her siblings leave one by one; her alcoholic father strikes her and her siblings; a sibling is wounded with a fire poker. The child abandonment and physical abuse are depicted with sustained emotional weight.
The father's drunken rages and physical violence against the family appear repeatedly in the early sections; later chapters depict a romantic partner's gaslighting, deception, and escalating controlling behavior toward the protagonist.
The father's alcoholism is a constant presence and the direct trigger for domestic violence episodes; a later scene involves a male character who is drunk during an attack on the protagonist.