User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
I am in love with this world and this book.
If you want:
- fairytale vibes
- arranged marriage trope
- family and siblings who would do anything for each other
- dragons, curses, quests, and talking paper cranes
then you need to read
Six Crimson CranesThank you to the publisher for sending me an ARC!
Rating: really liked it
EL is just one of those reliable authors who never disappoints with their storytelling.
i knew this story would deliver in terms of immaculate world-building with lush mythology, easy-going writing that expertly tells intriguing legends, and strong characters who are worth rooting for. as anticipated, this is a really well-rounded story that lives up to expectations on every front.
the only downside is i thought seryu the dragon was the most interesting character in the entire thing and he got so little page time. such a bummer. BUT the next book is set up to take place in the land of dragons, so i have high hopes that seryu will play a larger part in the story and that has me very excited!
overall, another great addition to ELs bibliography and an excellent story for those in the mood for an east-asian inspired fantasy.
↠ 4.5 stars
Rating: really liked it
When I was first getting into reading, I was semi-obsessed with fairy tales. Okay, maybe I was fully obsessed.
I had this book called The Wild Swans. It made me so stressed. I'm not sure why. But I fell in love with the story.
As far as I know, there aren't very many novels inspired by this tale, one of my favorite folk stories. So when I found
Six Crimson Cranes, I fainted and died, and then resurrected when I received an ARC (I LOVE YOU NETGALLEY).
This book definitely lived up to my expectations. I binged the second half of it, completely pulled into the story. It follows Princess Shiori and her brothers. All six of them were turned into cranes by Shiori's stepmother, Raikama. Shiori was cursed as well. For every word she speaks, one of her brothers will die.
Six Crimson Cranes frustrated me. It made me sad. It made me want to scream. Why? Because I cared. I wanted Shiori to defeat the curse. Every time she was set back, I felt her anxiety and stress and pain. I was shocked at how deeply I cared. I don't usually get very invested in books. Most of the time, I feel like I'm looking at characters from behind a glass wall. If a book isn't as excellent as this, I will be able to cackle as they suffer. I swear I'm not a psycho, just jaded.
I adore the way this book kicked stereotypes in the face and decided that it would follow a different path. I won't spoil the ending, but it really shocked me and made me rethink the way I perceived certain characters. It defied everything I thought would happen.
Shiori is such a strong and brave character, determined to save her brothers even if she knows she'll get hurt along the way. She's so easy to root for. She has a vibrant personality, believable goals, and an adorable origami friend. Each of her brothers has a unique, individual personality. It was easy to tell them apart.
The only part of this book I didn't like was right after Shiori had been cast out of the castle. She was roaming the streets searching for work. This lasted maybe three pages, and then a random person approached her and offered a job, even after everyone had been calling her a demon. This person didn't have motivation to hire her. It happened way too quickly and left me with whiplash, but honestly, this moment was so insignificant in comparison to the other events, so I'm not taking off part of a star for that. The rest of the book's pacing was pretty consistent.
Six Crimson Cranes was a delightful and heart-wrenching twist on an amazing fairy tale and I enjoyed every second of it, from the fleshed-out characters to the adorable romance to the awesome plot twists.
5 stars
ARC provided by NetGalley.✰ Asian readathon ✰Book 1:
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress : ★☆☆☆☆
Book 2:
Jade City : ★☆☆☆☆
Book 3:
The Paper Menagerie : ★★★★★
Book 4:
Six Crimson Cranes: ★★★★★
______
Excuse me, I need to scream.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA'
review to come...
Rating: really liked it
I'm honestly not really sure how I feel about this one! I was physically reading it until about halfway, if even, and then switched to the audiobook because I was finding it so slow. The audiobook did make a big difference, I started enjoying it more. But I still didn't really fall in love with this. I didn't dislike it, but I was so captured by the world of Spin the Dawn and this one didn't quite do that for me. I don't think it helps that I had seen so many people love this one, so my expectations were quite a bit higher. But it was just a solid fantasy for me. I will say, the story had a super unexpected twist that set it apart from a lot of other similar stories I've read. That was really cool. As for if I'll read the sequel, I'm really not sure. If I had to guess I'd say probably not. But I think this one is worth checking out if you're in the mood for a fantasy. I just have others I've enjoyed more.
Rating: really liked it
Absolutely promising, fairy-tallish, dreamy, magical start to brand new fantasy series!
A well-executed, creative, original, Eastern mythology meets action packed adventure with dark fairytale vibes definitely put this remarkable book on your radar.
If you already enjoyed Blood and Stars duology and became fan of seamstress Maia, it will be easier for you to adore Princess Shiori and her dark magical adventure!
Shiori is the princess of Kiata, the seventh and only girl child, 16 years old, spoiled by brothers, having hot and cold relationship with her stepmother Raikama : the nameless queen, engaged to be married with third lord of barbarian North named Takkan.
But she neither wants to get marry nor wants to know more about her future husband. And she has a big secret to keep: she can do magic by giving lives to paper birds. This is small scale but it’s still threatening when you’re the princess of an empire who forbids the magic.
Her destiny changes the day her groom to be visits her alongside his father. During her own betrothal ceremony, she finds herself chase after Kiki( paper crane she’s created) and she jumps into palace lake fully clothed to catch the Crane and the last thing she sees before getting drowned is a sea dragon who saves her life.
But her only problem is not getting house arrest to sharpen her sewing skins with her stepmother. Takkan and his father perceived her attitude as an insult and they left the palace urgently.
But Shiori barely stays out of trouble. When she attends Summer Festival, she meets the human form of sea dragon. His name is Seryu and he offers her to teach magic.
And later she finds out she’s not the only magical entity at the palace. Her stepmother is also a snake-human who can perform dark magic and as soon as she catches Shiori who learned her secret: she curses her by putting a bowl magically glued to her head, even her eyes are covered by bowl so nobody can recognize her.
Shiori finds herself exiled to farther village and the bowl is not the only curse she has to deal. Raikama also forbids her to talk or write anything about her situation: if she opens her mouth to form a word her brothers will start to die one by one. She also turns her brother into six cranes and cursed their own father not to remember his own children.
As her six brothers fly around the empire to find her, poor Shiori is caught by merciless woman to work at the kitchen of a dilapidated inn. Now she’s a poor maid, humiliated by the kitchen crew, trying so hard to her way back to her home!
As soon as one kind and charming soldier arrives to the inn to borrow her money and his dagger, her fate will change and she will get a chance to find her brothers and break the curse her stepmother put on them.
But this is the only beginning of her compelling adventure and nothing as it seems. As she learns more about herself, the curse, she slowly finds out how naive she is from the beginning and she is the only one to change things radically at the empire!
Overall: interesting, intriguing, riveting start of epic series! I loved Shiori and her complicated love-hate relationship with her stepmother.
Takkan was one of the sweetest heroes I’ve ever read. He can sing, draw and read poems. Yes, he’s adorable cinnamon bun!
I’m looking forward to read the second book! This is one of the most amazing fantasy reads of 2021!
Special thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children’s / Knopf Books for young readers for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.
Rating: really liked it
stop
STOP
S T O P
This was so good 😭
every single person needs to read this and that is an order.
GO! What are you waiting for?
I had honestly forgotten what it was like to read a fantasy book with a good plot. *cough*sjm*cough*
I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this. There are no words in the English dictionary to do so.
I am so glad Elizabeth Lim has blessed us with her characters and amazing plot.
Shiori is one of my favourite main characters ever because
1. She is not literally useless like every other main character to ever exist. She is not clumsy, not 'not like other girls and is not just plain boring.
2. She and Kiki are so cute together
3. She is so smart and helps those who deserve her help, and she loves her brothers with all of her heart.
Seryu was also the best I loved him so much. He was so funny and the most adorable
person dragon ever. The fact that he has red eyes and green hair makes him even hotter. The way he cared for Shiori was too much for my fragile little heart. I hated how little we saw of him in this book and I'm extremely excited for the next book so I can see more and more of him.
Now onto the prince Takken. Now I do love Shiori but this stupid little bitch thought he was a menace and the worst person alive and it turns out he is the loveliest person alive wtf. I do love Takken and he is an angel but I love Seryu more I'm sorry, not sorry. I'm manifesting no love triangle and that she will end up with Seryu and no Takken. They can be besties for life. I'm so sorry Takken my love but dragon boy wins.
I have to mention the plot. It is so good and the end?! That plot twist was not expected at all. I was screaming + crying.
Live footage of me reading this book:
🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨
SPOILERS START HERE THERE WILL BE SIRENS AGAIN WHEN SPOILERS ENDoh my god?! That ending?? What was that? The bad guys were good and the good guys were bad? WHATT I was really thinking that this witch bitch was the real deal but i lover so much. ELIZABETH LIM WHAT ARE YOU DOING MESSING WITH MY HEAD.
Alsoooo, if I were Shiori once i told the world who i was and that i was alive i would see everyone that was rude to me and say OFF WITH THEIR HEADS
is that selfish?
Yes
Do I give two shits?
Not one bit
What was that ending? THEY JUST JUMP INTO THE OCEAN AND NOW I NEED TO WAIT UNTIL THE 30th OF AUGUST?!?!
And how is Shiori gonna talk to the dragon king? he has the anger of Zeus and that's not good at all. Miss gurl better have her wits about her otherwise shits gonna be messy af.
🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨
SPOILERS ENDIf this review has not convinced you to read this book then all hope is lost.
I have decided that I am starting the rebellion where we stop reading romance books with naked men on the covers, so start with reading this instead! Join my cult! Not really but really.
peace out.
Have fun in my cult!
-Zoe
{previous review of other edition}this cover is one of the most beautiful things ive ever seen in my life
Rating: really liked it
A stunning remake of a fairytale.
Six Crimson Cranes is the perfect blend of whimsy and ferociousness, with twists and turns that will tug at your heartstrings.
Rating: really liked it
another beautiful Asian girl on a beautiful cover who I am in love with!!!!!
Rating: really liked it
This cover singlehandedly coerced me into reading the synopsis, adding it to my TBR, scouring Netgalley in hopes of requesting a copy, and then looking into the author and her other books.
Damn you, gorgeous cover.
Rating: really liked it
a story just as enchanting inside as it was out!! lush, ghibli-esque settings, dragons, atmospheric writing, found family, impossibly loveable characters... colour me utterly enchanted
> 4.5 stars —☆—
elizabeth lim’s cover artist is really out here doing the most for us, huh. thank you tran nguyen
Rating: really liked it
This cover is freaking gorgeous.
One of the best covers of 2021.
Rating: really liked it
“Find the light that makes your lantern shine,” she used to say. “Hold on to it, even when the dark surrounds you. Not even the strongest wind will blow out the flame.”
I am about to commit a crime by calling this book cute. This book was very cute. I loved it. I wasn't sure if I was going to love Shiori because of how arrogant and naive she was in the beginning but she had a great character development by the end. Though there are two things I don't understand.
1. How did she ever wash her hair without removing the bowl. I mean just look at this:
It does not make sense. (Or maybe it does but my bowl-less privileges is making me act like an asshole).
2. Who taught her sign language? And how does everyone tends to know what she's speaking? Like I can't even make out what my friend's saying when she's sitting just beside me during the boring classes. Maybe I should go and take lessons from Shiori. My friend's going to be so happy.
“Mother and Father always say that courage is the Bushian creed, but in times like these I wish it were more like ‘Keep to yourself and drink tea.’
Now Shiori's brothers were nice guys but they could have been great if only they stopped treating Shiori like she was going to break. I mean I know elder brothers are way too protective of their sisters but these guys just took it on another level. (or maybe it's just me being jealous because I desperately want an elder brother).
Seryu and Kiki were the best characters in this book. If only Takkan didn't like a boyfriend (and husband) material I would have shipped Seryu and Shiori. But well if she ends up with Seryu now then I'm committing murder. Of my brain.
The plot twist...was very predictable. I knew what was going to happen. If this was some other book I would have already dnfed it. But even though I knew what was going to happen, I enjoyed it. The last 20% had my heart racing. This is a great book if you like a little light fantasy and if you are willing to ignore some questionable issues.
Rating: really liked it
Very cool.
The Wild Swans gets a makeover with an Asian setting that kicks things up a notch!
Now I haven't read many retellings of this particular fairytale, but I was engrossed in Shiori's plight from the get-go. And I loved her BFF origami bird.
The gist?
There's a world that has walled its magic away, a clever young princess on the verge of adulthood, a bossy dragon-boy, a bunch of annoying but lovable brothers who turn into birds, an unwanted betrothment, an evil stepmother, and a whole lotta twists that change your opinion about the way you see the story to boot!
The only weird thing (to me) was that Shiori had a wooden bowl magicked onto her head to keep people from realizing who she was. I had to look it up because I was just like,
a bowl?! What the hell? Anyway, with my degree from Google firmly in my hand, I poked around on the web and found the Japanese story
Hachikazuki that's about a woman who is so beautiful her grandmother makes her promise to always wear a bowl on her head (for fairytale reasons) and (after fairytale tribulations) eventually marries a prince. <--ta-da!
Mystery of the bowl solved!
I think if you like retellings you'll find a lot to enjoy with this one.
Fair warning: this isn't a stand-alone book so it ends on...not a
cliffhanger per se, but it isn't completely resolved with a nice tidy HEA at the end. I'm fine with that because I think I'd like to go back and revisit this world.
Recommended.
Rating: really liked it
BEYOND FIVE STARS
Wow, I loved this book like a mother, sister, aunt, daughter, brother, father, cousin...well...I think you get it.
nothing has enchanted me more than asian mythology, and once I saw a book with a pretty Asian girl on the cover and heard that it was based on ancient china and japan, you knew I was in. This book did not disappoint. I devoured it within days, and it made me forget I was reading.
Writing: Beyond 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Lim has a way with words. She's not pretentious with her writing but it's still intriguing and pulls you into the scenery. And I'm pretty sure I didn't come across a "he growled/purred/barked" so that's like a million extra brownie points. The most important part of writing isn't how pretty it is but how the words flow through your ear and are translated into real sensations, whether that be feelings, scents, imagery, vibrance. And especially empathy. In this case, Lim did it just write. Shiori has to be an amazing character, because she's so well-written. Every second her struggles and emotion are translated into words that are perfectly understandable. Also the scenery was amazing. Lim must have a book called "the beautiful words dictionary" because I'm pretty sure she put every single word from that dictionary in this book.
Worldbuilding: Beyond 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Wow, Lim had a chance to build such a wonderful world and she took it. I love worlds that involve Asian mythology so I'm a little biased on this part. But wow, just wow. I'm not just talking about the monarchal regime, but THE CULTURE. I can never highlight how important culture is in a book's setting. You can't be lazy with it, because readers will know. But my oh my, did Lim outdo herself. There were so many traditions, clothes, manners. There were even activities that represent apologies. It was so amazing because in every different location the cultures and beliefs shifted. Not to mention religion was also mentioned. I loved learning about offerings and the relationships between dragons gods, priestesses, and demons. Each race had specific cultures and events that played a big part in their evolution. Lim obviously took a long time to trace the cultures and weave the strings. And learning little tidbits of culture and information on the world made the book ten times more enchanting.
Characters: Beyond 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Character development is the biggest part of a story. Our main POV was from Shiori, and honestly enduring the journey with her was amazing. Shiori is such a strong woman, and no I don't mean the "strong female character" who's OP and somehow always wins. There's a difference between being a strong female character and a well-written female character. Shiori was the latter. Shiori lost a lot in the book. She didn't win most of the time. But that doesn't mean that she wasn't strong. Every loss she gleaned, she got back up and dusted her clothing. You can see that each event changed her and made her grow. That's what I love about well-written female characters. They don't win every situation and have powers that solve everything. They lose most of the time, but each loss makes them win something stronger in themselves. You can't connect to a character if they never reach their lowest point. What I also loved about her is that she didn't just master her magic, she took the time to learn it and understand it. She was kind but not too much of a damsel and distress. She was selfless but also did things that were best for her. She allowed herself to love Takkan without making him her entire life. She was strong and compassionate, and on every page, you can see her growth. I loved her cleverness as well, whenever she incurred an obstacle, she would take the time to formulate a plan instead of diving head-first into danger. I loved Takkan as well, judge me if you like but I love a country-loyal, respectful, royal. And look at that, I just rhymed.
Plot 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
I can tell you that Lim has a penchant for originality. The plot was simple at first, as most retellings are. i thought she was going to keep it simple and stick to the baseline instead of adding complexity to the story. Well...i guess I underestimated her. She definitely wanted a differeent signature and the plot grew more complex throughout every page. There were twists and turns, and political intrigue that was so intense I think I bulged a nerve.
Elizabeth Lim has to most definitely be one of the best authors of the century.
