Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - Six Crimson Cranes

Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim

5 reviews

fragrant_stars's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

My god I am starstruck by this book. I cannot wait to devour the sequel!! I loved the characters, and my heart genuinely ached for the main character as she went through her struggles. The Wild Swans was one of my very favourite fairytales as a child and as a Chinese person seeing this beloved myth retold as a East Asian fantasy was so thrilling to me that I procrastinated for maybe a whole year. I was so nervous because I desperately wanted to love this book, but if I could go back now I'd be shrieking at my past self to dive right in post haste.

One of the things I loved best was how much agency was given to Shiori as a character. The blurb on the back of the book suggested to me that she would be getting a lot more help from Seryu, but as I read the book

that didn't seem to be the case. Yes, he helped Shiori in some key moments, but most of the time Shiori got on using her wits. I also thought, based on something Seryu had said in an earlier chapter, that Shiori being forced to not use her words would eventually figure out to use wordless magic, and maybe that would be what saved the day- but no, not even that.

Mostly wits. I found that brilliant.

My only regret is that the Raikama, the main antagonist / twist villain / antihero of the story, died before all the loose ends could be satisfactorily tied together. Then again, I guess that's just life for ya. Death doesn't really tie things neatly, so I guess that makes sense. Even before she was revealed to be more than she seemed I could already sort of tell- which, trust me, it was a good thing and it felt soooo rewarding when my guesses turned out right!! Made me feel like I'd have loved to see a few more scenes with her before she left the story.

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szuum's review against another edition

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cecinamo's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

It was an incredible story! I read the Six Swans fairy tale as a kid, so this book was somehow quite nostalgic to me xD. The main character is absolutely amazingly written. The side characters too! I especially liked

Raikama! I thought her story was so interesting and the relationship between her and Shiori was so cute ;^;. It was a nice twist to make the stepmother kind instead of evil like in the original fairytale

. Also Seryu was robbed ;-; He was such a cool character and we didn’t see enough of him.. I liked Takkan, but he seemed a little to perfect… Would definitely recommend this book tho!!

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sydapel's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Cant really think of anything other than five stars to give this gem of a novel. It's so rich in culture and character, with a beautiful coming of age story built into it. Lim does an excellent job of articulating Shiyori's growth, her dedication to her family and her joyous strength.

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rensreading's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

when people said it gave them studio ghibli vibes, they really weren’t kidding! still, i had my doubts so it kind of caught me off guard how right these people were about it.

it took me a hot sec to figure out which area of asia this story was drawing inspiration from though. i think i may have just been confused by the studio ghibli comments but idk. the elements of chinese folklore became more clear only once someone pointed them out to me so im probably just slow. the red string of fate was a dead giveaway for sure though.

the plot was okay. it took a little too long to start in my opinion and certain details were brought up in the very end to try and link them as an explanation for why the beginning was so long but it still felt clunky. it seemed like lim had a plan™️ for her ending but didn’t execute it smoothly enough to make sense. there was just a lot of rushing at the end, which i get because its the end but the change of pace was weird and kind of unnecessary too. slow and steady wins the race after all.

i didn’t really care for our mc or how she seemed to enrapture two boys. the romance was just meh to me. it felt like it was missing something but i honestly couldn’t tell you what it was. probably just plain old chemistry. either way, i thought there would be more emphasis on her brothers since they’re the whole reason she’s trying to break the curse anyway but, sadly, we get to learn very little about them. instead we get a good chunk of the book about someone else’s sibling instead :)) how fun :)))

all in all, this was an okay read. there definitely were some overdone cliches and hiccups in the plot but it wasn’t enough to make me dislike this book either.

i didn’t care for the random power-ups or how quickly the stepmother was forgiven though.

all of that should have been expanded on for sure.

because of all of the above, i give this 4 stars

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