The Crane Wife by Patrick Ness

Release Date: Out now!

Publisher: Cannongate Books

Pages: 320pgs

The Story

The extraordinary happens every day...

One night, George Duncan - decent man, a good man - is woken by a noise in his garden. Impossibly, a great white crane has tumbled to earth, shot through its wing by an arrow. Unexpectedly moved, George helps the bird, and from the moment he watches it fly off, his life is transformed.

The next day, a kind but enigmatic woman walks into George's shop. Suddenly a new world opens up for George, and one night she starts to tell him the most extraordinary story.

The Review

A big thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy of this book!

Ever since I read Patrick Ness's young adult series, The Chaos Walking trilogy, this new book of his had become one of my most anticipated books coming from this year because I knew if it was Patrick Ness writing the book, I was, ultimately, going to love it no matter what. And while this book was definitely not what I was first expected from it, but in some way I still managed to be (somehow) captivated by the story it told and in the end loving it as well.

THE CRANE WIFE from the get-go is a very different book. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is the kind of book that you will really need to pay attention to in order to fully understand the book as a whole, especially when it comes to the ending. But what I love about this 'different' side to things in this book is how the author writes and it's one of the few things I really appreciate about Patrick Ness's writing because he always goes out of his comfort zone - at least I find - and I love that it also becomes a read that is also outside my own comfort zone, which this book definitely is for me. Plus I love that the author based this book on an old Japanese folktale which is a bonus for me. Who doesn't love a good old Japanese folktale? I certainly love them!

Now regarding the characters, I certainly thought they were the most fascinating part of the book. Some are lovable, some are frustrating, and some are just simply . . . strange. But while this book has a very colourful cast of characters and each one has a personality of their own, but I think what makes them even more interesting to the reader is because of the storyline itself and how that story drives them in a certain way . . . I don't know what else to say to be honest with you because it's such a hard book to describe . . . but I think many people will come to love or at least like our two main characters, one being George, who is lovable in his own right, and also this new, strange young woman who comes into his life, that being Kumiko, who is the driving essence of this entire book and wow . . . she was definitely a character that inspired me or at least the way the author told her story . . . I just . . . I don't know . . . she was just really something special. I mean, she's weird for the most part (in a good way of course) but there's just something about her that makes me tick. Loved her and pretty much everything else about her! That's all I'll say.

Now while I would love to give this book 5 stars, but I think the only thing I didn't like about this book or rather what I wished the book offered to me was for more explanations on certain things in the book, especially with what happened to Kumiko's situation, but apart from that, I still pleasantly enjoyed this book!

Overall, THE CRANE WIFE is a very different book than what I'm used to reading, but it was a very beautifully written book and I would highly recommend it, especially if you have read Patrick Ness's previous books.

The Rating

4/5 stars