Food feeds the belly, thoughts feed the mind, but love is what feeds the heart.
Takkan, in chapter twenty-nine
I heard about Six Crimson Cranes through a cari can read video and decided to check it out. I have been skeptical about dipping my toes back into the young adult fiction pool after some meh experiences with reading a bunch of YA fantasy back in 2022. I don’t think this changed my mind about YA but I don’t think it was bad either.
This book has a fairy tale like quality to its narrative and writing. We’ve even got a mean stepmother that reminded me of Cinderella! I think the book uses the combination of East Asian folklore and fairy tales to weave a compelling enough narrative to keep me reading and wondering what is going to happen next. There is a bit of thriller in there specially in last quarter of the book.
At no point in the book however did I find myself particularly impressed. Some of the author quotes describe the book as breathtaking and unfortunately I found nothing of that nature here. Most of the characters are not particularly memorable or interesting and as someone who enjoys strong character focused writing that’s this book’s biggest weakness.
All in all, this book is fine. Not terrible but not mind-blowing either. As far as YA fantasy goes you can certainly do worse. I’ll say as far as the YA spectrum this is definitely on the “young” side of the spectrum. I could easily seeing teens enjoying this book and at least in the Kobo ebook store, it does get put in the Kids/Teen category. Me however, I think I’ll go back to reading non-YA fantasy and other non-YA genres for a bit.