Six Crimson Cranes

Book Title: Six Crimson Cranes

Author: Elizabeth Lim

Series: Six Crimson Cranes #1

Date Started: May 13th 2021

Date Completed: May 16th 2021

Genres: Fantasy, Historical, Adventure, Romance

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

While it took a bit of time to win me over, I utterly loved Six Crimson Cranes. The fact that it's based on my favourite fairytale (though I'm familiar with the Irish version, traditionally known as 'The Children of Lir' and some other European variations) always helps, but this time Lim is retelling the beautiful Japanese version. I'm not well informed about what differs between the traditional versions of the two tales, but there was plenty familiar and plenty new to explore.

My initial reservations about this book came from Shiori being written with the intelligence of a twelve-year-old when she was apparently sixteen - there were several points in the first half of the book where her internal dialogue didn't make sense, was incorrect about information that Shiori had clearly been given, and just plain cliched or not thought through (phrases like 'don't say I didn't warn you,' 'why won't anyone believe me,' 'I must have imagined it' were scattered through needlessly). By the halfway point, there's a noticeable shift in Shiori's persona but I still don't think it was really necessary and I'm still not convinced it was a deliberate choice to paint her as so naïve to begin with.

That being said, the fact that from around 32%, I read the rest of the book in one sitting tells you all you need to know. It's not often I'll stay in bed late into the day reading, but Six Crimson Cranes had my full attention and I didn't want to put it down. Some of the twists were a little obvious, but the final one, while predictable, was still very satisfying. The slow-burn romance was engaging (and In liked that it doesn't weigh Shiori or her story down), the magic gradually becomes more layered without being too overly complex, and I loved how Lim weaved the tale into a much bigger epic at the end, with potential for more to come.

Lovers of fairytale retellings, of Asian folklore, and especially those in love with this particular tale in its various iterations like myself, will adore this book. It's full of lush Asian mythology and culture, compelling world-building and magic, and an entertaining cast of characters. Lim's finale strongly suggests there're more adventures for Shiori on the way, but she doesn't need to leave this one half-finished in order to make you want it immediately.

The Ones We're Meant to Find

Book Title: The Ones We're Meant to Find

Author: Joan He

Date Started: May 11th 2021

Date Completed: May 13th 2021

Genres: Sci-Fi, Mystery

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

I was so unexpectedly impressed by Descendant of the Crane when I got it from NetGalley a few years ago that I was so excited to see what Joan He put out next. And she’s provided a wonderful testament to her versatility by coming from a sprawling epic mystery set in historical China to a futuristic sci-if thriller with a deserted island, A.I. and humans with in-built technology monitoring them night and day.

The Ones We’re Meant to Find was very clever, well paced and meticulously structured. Like Descendant of the Crane, the story winds itself very deliberately and twists in several different directions as it progress that you wouldn’t expect at the start - and all perfectly convincingly.

It’s characters are grey and complex, explored in a thoughtful, well-planned way. This book, at its heart, is a character study that isn’t over-indulgent in the time it gives to expanding each character, but necessary to letting the story play out in a way that immerses the reader to fully understand the reality of what their choices mean in this world. He also doesn’t enforce complete sympathy; many individuals are deeply morally conflicted, and everyone acts in fear or spite at some point, and we as the audience are allowed to doubt them and their motives. Which makes choosing to root for them all the more personal.

My one reservation is that I was left feeling... strange. I admire the grey characters and open ends but it leaves me feeling strange. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; it uprooted my expectations and assumptions in many ways, and challenged me to look at the situations differently - how many book actually leave you thinking when you put them down?

Sci-fi novels have never been my thing, but there was still a lot for me to enjoy in this book. I think Joan He is one of the most intelligent and imaginative young writers on offer at the moment, and I, again, can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

Ninth House

Book Title: Ninth House

Author: Leigh Bardugo

Series: Alex Stern #1

Date Started: April 4th 2021

Date Completed: May 11th 2021

Genres: Horror, Mystery, Thriller, Fantasy

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

Ninth House ended up being more gothic-occult horror than mysterious detective adventure - what made me think it was going to be the latter I'm not sure, but it was a bit of change in direction at first. That's not any real problem with the book, but it definitely contributed to what made me move at a snail's pace (it took me more than a month to read this): it's just a bit more convoluted than it needs to be. While the voice of Jake Peralta kept saying 'cool motive, still murder' in my head throughout, it felt morphed a bit into 'cool story, still slow'.

There's a lot of information piled on you in the whole book, but especially at the start. I honestly still don't really understand the magic system and I couldn't name the different houses, let alone match what discipline is from which house, or what person is in what house; I just about got on top of the classical codenames by the end (Alex is Virgil right... right?). Ultimately, if you latch onto the brilliant cast of characters, nothing else matters too much, but I think it's worth saying that I'd hope later books in the series continue to make distinctions because I need a handbook.

I really like the themes Bardugo chooses, but they are slightly lost amongst the genre pieces in this. The classism and casual sexism, the gaslighting and prejudice against addicts, is interesting and nice to actually see tackled amongst fantasy, but it fades into the background when it isn't used as the main issue of the scene (where it knocks you over the head a bit).

Ultimately, Ninth House did not need to be anywhere near as long as it is. The last third was great and I blasted through the end of the story, but the first 200/300 pages was a lot of extra stuff that wasn't necessary for it. I will say that I'm a big fan of books that finish their own story arcs satisfyingly but leave questions unanswered and strings left untied so there's somewhere to go. Whether I'll read the next instalment, I'm still unsure. More because Ninth House just wasn't really my thing and it taking so long to get to the point made it less enjoyable for me.

La Belle Sauvage

Book Title: La Belle Sauvage

Author: Philip Pullman

Series: The Book of Dust #1

Date Started: March 28th 2021

Date Completed: April 2nd 2021

Genres: Adventure, Fantasy, Mystery

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

La Belle Sauvage builds on the original His Dark Materials books as a prequel but lets its protagonists be their own heroes and have their own story. While very much in the vein of its predecessors with its whimsical adventures and secret organisations, it was definitely a lot of set-up for what will presumably come later in the Book of Dust series.

The two halves of the book have very different vibes; we have a murder mystery thriller with science and secret agents at the beginning, and then we have a more traditional adventure to fantastical islands in a biblical flood during a cat-and-mouse chase to escape the baddies in the second chunk. While I enjoyed both, it was a bit of a weird pivot that left quite a few threads hanging untied by the end of the novel.

Pullman has once again written good characters to frame his narrative. My personal favourite was Dr Hannah Relf, who mirrors Mary Malone from His Dark Materials. In hindsight, there are a lot of similarities with the character roles in the two trilogies, but each has their own personality in this new instalment that it's only looking back that I'm noticing all the structural crossovers. Maybe it's deliberate, maybe not.

I do have to admit that the cliffhanger ending was a bit of a let down for me, especially since I know that The Secret Commonwealth (the next book in this series) doesn't directly follow on from the events of this one. While the goal of the book was achieved, there's very obviously something else to be done - I trust Pullman enough as a storyteller to know it'll be solved eventually, but I'm not a massive fan of narratives that jump around their own timeline to withhold information just to make you read the next one.

The Wolf and the Woodsman

Book Title: The Wolf and the Woodsman

Author: Ava Reid

Date Started: March 7th 2021

Date Completed: March 27th 2021

Genres: Fantasy, Historical, Romance, Adventure

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

Reid's novel felt very YA beside the books it compares itself to. That's not necessarily meant as a bad thing, but I do think the modernist, teenage style interferes slightly with the traditionally timeless fairytale tone. I don't think the 1st person present tense helps either; Èvike comes across rambly and preachy when giving away lore and worldbuilding, as well as presenting her as knowing everything there is to know for the sake of the prose, but then of course not letting her behave in that way for the sake of the plot.

This book is like four different stories in one; the last two are compelling, the first two not so much. Reid integrates a lot of really nice fantastical aspects from Hungarian and Jewish history and mythologies, but they're all used as placeholders to hurry the story along. In trying to do an epic akin to Novik or Arden in one book, Reid has lost the magic of folklore and wonder that make those stories such spectacles.

As much as I moan about comparing books to one another, Évike and Gáspár essentially follow Nina and Matthias' story from Six of Crows. I love that storyline and I think there's lots of room for variation, but I just wasn't convinced enough by the characters (who are frequently inconsistent and sometimes passive) for them to even begin treading a new path.

The Wolf and the Woodsman is worth the read if it sounds like something you'd like, but ultimately some creative choices left me underwhelmed and much preferring other authors in the same genre that execute their stories with more finesse and heart.

Abhorsen

Book Title: Abhorsen

Author: Garth Nix

Series: The Old Kingdom #3

Date Started: March 15th 2021

Date Completed: March 18th 2021

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure

Quality Rating: Five Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five Stars

Review:

I enjoyed Abhorsen the most out of The Old Kingdom series; having been a little underwhelmed by the previous two books (despite still enjoying them), Abhorsen was pure magic to read and enjoy.

Nix has written such a cool universe, with on-point world-building confidently executed, expanded on expertly with each instalment without taking over the story. Lirael and Sam are great protagonists, both powerful and engaging in their own right, worthy of being passed the torch from Sabriel and Touchstone (who both have their own little snippets which were probably my favourite parts). And what an ending! It ties together the old and the new, empowers the right people but allows everyone to have a heroic hand in it too.

I felt a little down at the end of the last book's cliffhanger but Abhorsen made up for it with its well-rounded narrative. It didn't feel like a bigger book chopped in half, it was its own story and had the right momentum and pay off to bring the trilogy (that yes, is expanded further, but really these are the core three) to a satisfying end.

Sorcerer to the Crown

Book Title: Sorcerer to the Crown

Author: Zen Cho

Series: Sorcerer Royal #1

Date Started: March 1st 2021

Date Completed: March 10th 2021

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery, Historical

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

I had high hopes for this book, and while it was an okay story with glimmers of originality - and a whimsicality to it that I love and wish would be more common in fantasy novels - it was a little slow and dense for my tastes. Part murder-mystery, part magic school (somehow some romance ends up in there), there's a lot of things going on that all weave into each other a little too conveniently for me.

I have a note in my book about the flippant way the narrator talks about women being delicate, blatant classism, and how freely use racial slurs, even though it's all portrayed as bad - and yes, I understand it's commenting on the backwards attitudes of the world it's set in. As this shifts later into the book as the characters become more mature, I'm not going to fully go into it here, but the first chunk of the book gave me pause and wasn't the most fun to read because of it.

What I think made this book inaccessible for me was how awkwardly the prose was written. There are some sentences that nail the old-fashioned language and rhythm, but the rest of it is so jumbled and dense that the characters' arcs and meaning come across as second best. It makes the whole thing, though written in a very complicated way, actually come across quite childish as everyone seems way more shallow than they're intended to be.

There's actually a wonderful diversity in this book, and nice dynamics between the characters - I just wish there wasn't such obvious, pedantic and over-explanatory narration plastered all over it and that we were given the space to watch the characters do their thing instead.

Sorcerer to the Crown was a fun, kinda-easy read, but it would've been more enjoyable for me if the writing had been smoother. I was given the sequel for review by the publisher, so will likely continue the series if only to complete that - but with this story wrapped up (conveniently) very well, I'm interested where Cho will take the characters next.