C-/D+ | While this book has a great premise, its execution was choppy and poor. The book’s saving grace is the writing. However, beautiful diction can’t hide the fact that there was no structure to this book, that the pacing was all over the place, and that the characters and their relationship didn’t feel genuine.
This review will contain some spoilers.
Title: Descendant of the Crane
Author: by Joan He
Synopsis: Tyrants cut out hearts. Rulers sacrifice their own.
Princess Hesina of Yan has always been eager to shirk the responsibilities of the crown, but when her beloved father is murdered, she’s thrust into power, suddenly the queen of an unstable kingdom. Determined to find her father’s killer, Hesina does something desperate: she engages the aid of a soothsayer—a treasonous act, punishable by death… because in Yan, magic was outlawed centuries ago.
Using the information illicitly provided by the sooth, and uncertain if she can trust even her family, Hesina turns to Akira—a brilliant investigator who’s also a convicted criminal with secrets of his own. With the future of her kingdom at stake, can Hesina find justice for her father? Or will the cost be too high?
In this shimmering Chinese-inspired fantasy, debut author Joan He introduces a determined and vulnerable young heroine struggling to do right in a world brimming with deception.
Publication Date: 9th April 2020
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Table of Contents
— REVIEW:
The basic premise of this book is that Hesina becomes queen of Yan after her father is murdered. She wants to find out who killed her father, so she commits treason and speaks to a soothsayer who is part of a group of magic users who are both hated and feared by the general public and are thus oppressed. This soothsayer points her to Akira who is this convict and he is the one who is supposed to help her find the answers. Meanwhile, she is forced to deal with court intrigue, politics, and navigating her new title while trying not to let war happen.
Sounds interesting right? It’s so right up my alley with the whole court intrigue and politics and a young female character up against the court. It really seems like it could be a YA, Chinese-inspired ASOIAF book. But it’s not.
God, I wish I could take back the time I wasted on this book.
This book felt like it was the first draft.
There was just no structure what so ever. Things felt like they were all over the place. While some aspects of the worldbuilding felt like they were thought out, other aspects along with the plot didn’t feel like they had structure or direction. The plot was all over the place. The pacing was just an atrocity and chapters didn’t flow very well. Nothing flowed well, to be honest, but every time there was a new chapter, I was like, “Huh?”
It got to a point where I just got really confused because where was the character development? What was the plot? Actual relationships between the characters? How is it that the queen is the one getting ordered around by a doctor and maids?
What do I think contributed to the lack of structure and direction?
The author bit off more than she can chew
The world is complex and royal/imperial courts are even more complex. One of the reasons why I absolutely enjoy books set in royal/imperial courts or anything to do with politics and intrigue is because it has layers upon layers.
Joan He attempted to create a complex world here. But she failed. She could not capture the tension that comes with court intrigue and the struggles of a newly ascended monarch. She could not capture the tension I’d expect from a murder-mystery set in a royal court.
There was too much going on and as a result, there wasn’t enough meat.
Yes, we can argue that she did a good job showing how violent people can be towards a race they were taught to hate and fear. She did a decent job showing the inequalities that exist in this world at least when it came to what the soothsayers experienced.
However, she could not bring this tale to life. It was cold and pretty lifeless. Too many things in the story were left underdeveloped and unexplored. The world wasn’t the only thing that suffered.
The characters were totally underdeveloped as well. I didn’t see any growth with any of the characters. This book can’t even claim to be a character-driven novel because none of the characters actually developed as the story progressed. Even if this book has a sequel already in the works, characters are supposed to have some sort of development.
But there wasn’t. The characters are interesting — Hesina, for example, is one of those characters that I normally would find so intriguing. However, just because a character looks interesting on the surface, doesn’t mean that they have any depth to them.
The characters were shallow. I couldn’t connect with any of them and it sucks because Hesina, in particular, would have been such a great character. I would have loved to see this naive, privileged character blossom into a queen even I would want to support. But instead, she remained the same throughout the whole book.
And it’s the same for all the characters, in fact. None of them grew. They were just shallow, underdeveloped beings that I didn’t care for with no depth, just like everything else in this book.
And, because there was no depth in this book, all the blemishes were more obvious
There are those books out there who have really strong worldbuilding and characters with fantastic character development but have sh!t pacing and a plot that is either all over the place or is just straight up weak. I’ve read books like that and enjoyed them. Some have even become my favorite books.
Unfortunately, because this book has no depth to it — both in its worldbuilding and its characters — the issues it has with the pacing and plot become more evident, more glaring.
I do think that the prose here is good. I enjoyed He’s writing style and she does a good job with word choice.
However, her pacing was terrible and the plot was just poorly executed. She does not know how to do transitions. When one chapter ends, we would suddenly find ourselves in a completely different place with no explanation. The worst thing is that we would be told what happened between the sections rather than see it for ourselves.
Being told about cool plot things rather than shown is the fastest way to annoy me
There are circumstances where “show, don’t tell” doesn’t work. However, in this instance, it happened too often. So, rather than show me the interesting, plot-related schemes these characters are doing to help me become more attached to them and their cause, you’re telling me? No. No, no, no.
How am I supposed to care about the characters when a lot of times, I get told what’s important, rather than see it for myself? This whole “tell, don’t show” thing makes it hard to see characters and their relationships develop and why they do if it happens. It makes it hard to believe.
For example, why should I believe that Akira and Hesina should be together when I have no evidence of chemistry between them? We hardly get interactions between them that aren’t related to Akira trying to solve her father’s murder. But somehow, we’re told, “Yes, they have this budding attraction between them and you just believe it because I said so.”
That’s not how things work!
If I am to believe that this book was meant to be complex and deep, then Joan He did a bad job trying to convince me.
Overall, this book was an utter disappointment and I don’t recommend
I don’t think it’s worth wasting money & time on a sloppy, shallow book. Joan He bit off more than she can chew with this book and it shows in how this book has no focus, no structure, no flow.
I will be unhauling this book because I do not want it to take up space on my bookshelf.
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