Skip to main content

Book Review: The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly

THE HEN WHO DREAMED SHE COULD FLY by Sun-Mi Hwang
4 Stars
Verdict: It's a harsh life for a hen.


This is a Korean folk tale of a hen who, unlike the title suggests, dreams of being able to keep the egg she lays and raise it as her own. She dreams of freedom. When she is culled with the other old hens, she turns her hardship into an opportunity to seek her dreams.

Sprout goes through some rough stuff, let me tell you. Unable to produce any more eggs, Sprout begins her journey by being tossed in a grave and buried by a load of other dead. Immediately after, she's hunted by a weasel who enjoys killing any survivors of the culling.

Chilling stuff. If you think about this in terms of people, this is a horrifying book. And her poor life doesn't get easier from there.

For the whole story, Sprout has to fight to survive. She puts up with specism, the murderous weasel, and the harsh reality of her eggless body to make her dreams come true.

Again, I needed a short book to pass my reading challenge, and this was an interesting find. If you're looking for something short and different, with fable-like qualities, then it's definitely worth a try.

Source: Bought it to complete my 2017 reading challenge.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Your Best Character: Quiz and Contest

The best characters are put through hell and yet can still carry the story forward on their broken shoulders. Your plot will fall flat if your characters are one dimensional and strong characters can make a cliché story really shine; characterisation takes work and thought. The key to character development is to ask questions. Maybe spend time thinking about the scenarios that have happened to your character which won’t make the final cut of the novel. The questions below are designed to test that (to some degree). [NOW CLOSED, REVIEWS PENDING] Answer at least 5 of these in a comment with a link to your story and I’ll give you an in-depth review. Reviews are approximately 1000 words and take me well over an hour, so if you’re looking to polish up your manuscript then don’t miss out. Also, the opening chapter with the most interesting and well-developed character will be featured on this blog! Feel free to write about anyone as long as they feature in the same story. You can ans...

Book Review: Children of Blood and Bone

CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE by Tomi Adeyemi 5 Stars Verdict: So good it hurts. The night magic died, Zélie watched her mother's murder as the Maji were slaughtered. Now Zélie has a chance to bring back magic. With the help of her brother and a rogue princess, she must outrun the crown prince and battle her self-doubts to restore magic to the world. This West-African inspired fantasy is powerful and all round awesome from start to finish. The writing is emotive and imaginative, the pacing is as perfect as it gets, and the characters are real with flaws and charm. I hardly know what to say. A brilliant book like this tells the editor in me to shut up and enjoy the ride, so I'd need to read it again to offer more of a critique. If every book was as good as this one, I would never be able to stop reading. The struggles, anger, and pain are carved into this book so deeply that the desires bleed through the pages and the triumphs feel earned. The emotion in this book is ...

Book Review: The Astonishing Colour of After

THE ASTONISHING COLOUR OF AFTER by Emily X.R. Pan 4 Stars Verdict : A synesthesiastic tale of dealing with loss. When Leigh's mother commits suicide, she visits Leigh as a bright red bird. Leigh follows her mother's memories to Taiwan to meet her grandparents for the first time and to try to understand her mother's passing. For a book so sad, it's very colourful. Leigh often shares her emotions as colours and it works very well, especially as the book travels through a whole river of emotions. It shows a battle lost, families broken, and the dark struggles of depression through the lives of Leigh and her family. To anyone affected by depression and suicide, this book contains those triggers. I felt it handled these themes with tender care and respect, without glamorising suicide or mental illness. The author also went to great lengths to portray a single instance of depression, and even clarifies at the end note that the story isn't mean to explain away d...