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noteworthy_fiction's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
lemonadegirl29's review against another edition
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
kieranmd's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Mesmerizing and mind bending. Lots to take away, I’m sure when I read it for the second time there’ll be lots to take in I missed the first.
Content Warnings
Minor: Gore
jess_mango's review
4.0
The Rain Heron is a modern eco-fable set in a country post-coup and after climate change. Though nothing is outright said about climate change there are several references to changes in weather and temperature that have caused people to move.
Ren lives by herself in a cave on a mountain in order to escape the modern world. Her solitary existence is disturbed when a young lieutenant and her troops show up in search of a mythical rain heron. The story is broken into several parts, each of which tells the story from the perspective of a different character. Their lives become intertwined and each is saddled with the weight of doing what they're told vs what is right. This is all in the context of a story which at its heart is about humans trying to control nature.
Highly recommend this one to fans of magical realism and modern fables.
This book counts towards the PopSugar 2021 Challenge Task #28: A magical realism book
Thank you to the publisher for the review copy!
Ren lives by herself in a cave on a mountain in order to escape the modern world. Her solitary existence is disturbed when a young lieutenant and her troops show up in search of a mythical rain heron. The story is broken into several parts, each of which tells the story from the perspective of a different character. Their lives become intertwined and each is saddled with the weight of doing what they're told vs what is right. This is all in the context of a story which at its heart is about humans trying to control nature.
Highly recommend this one to fans of magical realism and modern fables.
This book counts towards the PopSugar 2021 Challenge Task #28: A magical realism book
Thank you to the publisher for the review copy!
thepurplebookwyrm's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
This one's... a little difficult to talk about, but here goes:
The Rain Heron opens up with a fable about its titular creature, and how its impact on the weather impacted, in turn, the fortunes of a lone farmer, some time in the undefined past. This, and the recurring Nature-related imagery in the novel, are probably why I've also seen this called an 'eco-fable', more specifically.
The book then follows a series of interrelated characters: a female hermit surviving in the mountainous wilds, a male military medic, and a female military commander (at two different points in her life) whose lives are all affected by the legendary Rain Heron – or the people who wish to capture and harness it.
And it... was basically a miss for me. Genre-wise, The Rain Heron counts as magical realism more than anything else, though it didn't grate on my nerves the way previously read magically realist tales have in the past. Still, the world-building in, and speculative nature of this book didn't amount to much; the story takes place in the unspecified future, past a certain point of no return, it seemed, with regards to climate change. And in... Tasmania, apparently? I figured it was Australia, given the mention of marsupial species, but no place name was otherwise provided in the text, so I guess it doesn't really matter in any case.
There certainly was the titular Rain Heron, and another, somewhat fantastical creature, what I'll call the 'Rainbow Squid' – the ink of which lends a feeling of 'super-realism' to paintings, amongst other things. The writing around those two animals was very evocative, and the descriptions of Nature, of wilderness more generally were beautifully evocative, and immersive as well. But I wish the Rain Heron, at least, had been more immediately present, and focal to the story, in a way it just wasn't.
Outside of that, well... this was a very meandering, and rather empty-feeling story, unfortunately. Overall, I suppose this one counts as character-driven, but that's only because the characters, and attendant character work, were just a little more front and centre than the very bare-bones plot.
This one was all about vibes, really. The theming, such as it was, was incredibly weak – somewhat unlike previous magically realist novels I've read, funnily enough. Sure, the setting and aforementioned vibes reminded me, at times, of Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation and Into the Wild (the movie), but there wasn't anything I could really engage with beyond a very basic: "hoomans be too stoopid and destructive to appreciate and harmonise with Nature, and Nature, for its part, doesn't give a shit either way and will carry on just fine without us (kind of)". Okay.
So yeah: beautiful Nature-related descriptions, very evocative Nature-related vibes, cool magical heron and semi-magical squid, and that's it. All in all, this one felt like a smooth, pretty looking but empty shell I quickly slipped off of (especially past part two). Worth reading once, but no more.
The Rain Heron opens up with a fable about its titular creature, and how its impact on the weather impacted, in turn, the fortunes of a lone farmer, some time in the undefined past. This, and the recurring Nature-related imagery in the novel, are probably why I've also seen this called an 'eco-fable', more specifically.
The book then follows a series of interrelated characters: a female hermit surviving in the mountainous wilds, a male military medic, and a female military commander (at two different points in her life) whose lives are all affected by the legendary Rain Heron – or the people who wish to capture and harness it.
And it... was basically a miss for me. Genre-wise, The Rain Heron counts as magical realism more than anything else, though it didn't grate on my nerves the way previously read magically realist tales have in the past. Still, the world-building in, and speculative nature of this book didn't amount to much; the story takes place in the unspecified future, past a certain point of no return, it seemed, with regards to climate change. And in... Tasmania, apparently? I figured it was Australia, given the mention of marsupial species, but no place name was otherwise provided in the text, so I guess it doesn't really matter in any case.
There certainly was the titular Rain Heron, and another, somewhat fantastical creature, what I'll call the 'Rainbow Squid' – the ink of which lends a feeling of 'super-realism' to paintings, amongst other things. The writing around those two animals was very evocative, and the descriptions of Nature, of wilderness more generally were beautifully evocative, and immersive as well. But I wish the Rain Heron, at least, had been more immediately present, and focal to the story, in a way it just wasn't.
Outside of that, well... this was a very meandering, and rather empty-feeling story, unfortunately. Overall, I suppose this one counts as character-driven, but that's only because the characters, and attendant character work, were just a little more front and centre than the very bare-bones plot.
This one was all about vibes, really. The theming, such as it was, was incredibly weak – somewhat unlike previous magically realist novels I've read, funnily enough. Sure, the setting and aforementioned vibes reminded me, at times, of Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation and Into the Wild (the movie), but there wasn't anything I could really engage with beyond a very basic: "hoomans be too stoopid and destructive to appreciate and harmonise with Nature, and Nature, for its part, doesn't give a shit either way and will carry on just fine without us (kind of)". Okay.
So yeah: beautiful Nature-related descriptions, very evocative Nature-related vibes, cool magical heron and semi-magical squid, and that's it. All in all, this one felt like a smooth, pretty looking but empty shell I quickly slipped off of (especially past part two). Worth reading once, but no more.
platosfire's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
dre_'s review
3.0
This was fun, I haven’t read anything like it before. I’ve heard it called an “eco-fable” and that feels right to me! The end was a bit twee for me, but there’s something very satisfying and safe about tidy endings. The imagery of the rain heron was my favourite part.
rrstarrs's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25