Six Crimson Cranes

Product Information

A beautiful and immersive YA fantasy retelling of the Grimm brothers’ The Six Swans fairytale, set in an East-Asian inspired world, by the author of Spin the Dawn.

Yes, that’s a bit of a lie. But I only really ship the couples that I’m intensely in love with, and Shiori x Takkan didn’t do that all the way for me.

Success!

Kiki was a mood, as much as an animated paper crane can be. She was so much fun to read and I really liked having her as a character. 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.

Six Crimson Cranes follows our mc Princess Shiori, who has a secret: she has forbidden magic running in her veins. Then on the day of her unwanted betrothal, she is discovered by her stepmother, Raikama. Raikama is also a sorceror and she banishes Shiori, placing a curse on her and her brothers. Her brothers have been turned into cranes and for every word that Shiori speaks, one of them will die. She must now find a way to save her family- and discover the dark conspiracies lurking in the kingdom. I also really enjoyed the characters- our mc Shiori went through a ton of development and i really grew attached to her. Poor girl went through sm but she kept going and we love to see it 👑👑 It was love at first sight! The elegant font, simple illustration and soft, pastel colours grabbing my attention and demanding that I read this book. Raikama has dark magic of her own, and she banishes the young princess, turning her brothers into cranes, and warning Shiori that she must speak of it to no one: for with every word that escapes her lips, one of her brothers will die. None of the characters were compelling. Shiori is your basic spoiled princess who learns humility and hard work by being banished and having her privileges stripped. Takkan is your cliché too perfect prince, who was able to implausibly deduce every situation with no context. Seryu was interesting but he was barely present. It was hard to get to know the brothers because there were six of them and they were usually cranes.It truly transports you to another world and even with all the chaos and evil—I didn't want to leave. Penniless, voiceless, and alone, Shiori searches for her brothers, and uncovers a dark conspiracy to seize the throne. Only Shiori can set the kingdom to rights, but to do so she must place her trust in a paper bird, a mercurial dragon, and the very boy she fought so hard not to marry. And she must embrace the magic she's been taught all her life to contain - no matter what it costs. 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!

You could say that the world-building of this book was similar to “Spin The Dawn” (walnut shells enclosing magic, enchanted remnants of the gods, enchanters becoming demons, etc.), but considering that she was drawing from the same mythology, that’s not really a sound argument.From there, a lot of shit goes down, involving Seryu’s dragon pearl, Shiori’s magic, and her very beautiful, slightly suspicious stepmother who definitely has secrets of her own. 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. Shiori’s brothers - there isn’t much to say about them, because they weren’t very major to me and I lowkey don’t remember their names. But they were good characters and I liked reading their relationship with Shiori. The other issue I had was that even thought there was less time spent on action, there still wasn’t enough focus on characters either. There were no character deep dives into their motivation outside of some superficial descriptors, and as a result I felt held at arms-length from everything they were going through. And because I didn’t know the characters that well, it was difficult to know whether something they were doing was in-character or not. Is this normal for Shiori? Her brothers? Raikama? I don’t know, and I think some of the important revelations later on would have been more impactful if I understood these people better. The world-building of Kiata was so intricate and it was pretty well-done. There was some info-dumping, which made it hard for me to follow - I think it should have been integrated more smoothly into the storyline somehow.