The Crane Wife

I liked it at first. In the middle, a little less. By the end, I was annoyed and bewildered.


(That's the honest-to-goodness truth. You can stop reading now, if you want. Nobody is making you read the rest of this little review. Or you can simply discount it as the thoughts of one reader. It's okay. Warning: lots and lots of spoilers.)


Let me tell you a little more, just in case you are thinking about reading this book and those three sentences are not enough.


I liked the imagery at first. The mysterious arrival of a crane outside George Duncan's door. The subsequent arrival the next day of Kumika at his workplace. George and Kumika's combined art that caused such a stir.


But then I became confused. It's very likely that it is just me. A volcano. Plunging fingers into a warrior and stopping his heart. George going out on Kumiko with his daughter's difficult friend.

Dreams A fire.


On and on. I couldn't fill in the spaces between the images. And I gave up caring about these characters, though I did manage to force myself to read through to the end. In the hope (unrealized) that the story would make some sort of sense by the conclusion.


I'll tell you that this is not the review I wanted to write, not the review I thought I'd be writing when I was happily reading along, a few pages in.


And I'd love it if you could ‘splain to me what I'm missing. Maybe that's all it would take.

Everything about this books suggests that I should hate it. Magical realism? Yup, hate that. Contemporary? Ew, why would I read about people who could be my neighbors unless it's true crime? Yet somehow The Crane Wife found its way onto my list of favorite books of the year. I connected with Amanda on a molecular level (despite having vastly differing opinions). Surprisingly I also really loved the variety of writing styles used and feel they affected the tone in an appropriate and noticeable way. In the end, did I get it? I don't know, but I loved it.

This book was magical. The first 1/2 is filled with yellow highlighting of the beautifully written phrases I wanted to remember and be inspired by. I could feel the loneliness of the two main characters, and the character's amazement at his interaction with an unexpected crane. For some reason I got a little bored 2/3rds of the way in, and one of the story lines didn't ring true, hence the 3 stars, but I enjoyed the ending.