Where the Crawdads Sing (2022) review

Having been abandoned by both her parents (Ahna O'Reilly and Garret Dillahunt) and siblings, barefoot and filthy Kya Clark (Jojo Regina) has to support herself by digging up and selling mussels (Social Services really isn't doing their job); as a young adult (Daisy Edgar-Jones) she has romantic relations with two men, Tate (Taylor John Smith) and Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson) ... but when Chase ends up dead near her shack, she's immediately thrown in prison.  The entirety of it seems like it was The Notebook only rewritten by some A.I. software still in its beta stage of testing, throwing in bits of other books for good measure, plus "showing" how Tate's the "decent one" because he refuses to have sex with her (pregnancy fears!) while two-pump chump Chase tries to sexually assault her after she discovers he's engaged to another woman and never told her (f-boy vibes!).  The ending is kind of ironic considering the author of the source "novel," Delia Owens, along with her ex-husband are currently wanted for questioning in Zambia for the alleged murder of a poacher.  Is this her guilt-ridden confession?  Is O. J. Simpson her literary agent?