This book was one of the strangest that I have probably ever read. That being said, I love strange books but am still scratching my head at what I just read. This is why I need more people to pick it up so we can have a healthy discussion of the content.

In this story we follow a 15 year old girl who is the primary care giver for her 6 year old brother. Her mother is an artist that spends most of the time in her studio trying to make ends meet. One night her mother brings home a crane for dinner who she introduces as her lover. The story continues to unfold leaving you with layer after layer of intrigue.

I definitely plan to read more from Kelly Barnhill in the future.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan for allowing me to read an early copy of this book. I look forward to the release date!

Our unnamed main character, a fifteen-year-old girl, has been looking after her younger brother for six years while their mother weaves quilts and makes cheese. Then her mother brings home a crane and declares that he is their new father. The mother is so enamored that the daughter has to figure out how to keep the household together by herself.

This is a short story that exists. I found the story serviceable and, at times, chilling. Too many competing concepts combined made for a mediocre book. The parentification is well done but gets overshadowed by the creepy presence of the crane, a flat character. I’m supposed to hate the crane, but he’s such a stock bad male character that I don’t feel anything toward him. Her mother, however, is horrible. From a very young age, the main character is taught by her dying father how to take care of her mother because her mother is an artist and therefore is useless with the basics of life. All the mother wants to do is fly away and abandon her children.

This review is based on an advanced reader copy provided through Netgalley for an honest review.

I didnt like this quite as much as the other books I have read by this author. It was short and easy to read in one setting. I didn't dislike the story but it didn't blow me away. The futuristic? setting threw me off a bit. I think I would have enjoyed the story more if it was impossible to determine when it took place.

Every time I put this down after a couple of hours I wanted to dive back into this nameless teenager beyond stressful life. At times I was creeped out during the crane moments especially the scene in the kitchen when she was washing the dishes. Other times I wanted to reach through the pages and shake the mother. I wonder what Barnhill will come out with next?
Thank you TOR and Netgalley.

With all the fine praise this book has received, I wonder if I'm the outlier here, but in any case The Crane Husband didn't work for me at all. I found the writing style to be simple, boring and formulaic, with some of the more striking phrases seeming out of place and much too melodramatic. The dialogue felt both stiff and weirdly poetic, and I often felt as if I were being bludgeoned by heavy, clumsy metaphors.

This book read more like a YA novella from a first time writer than as the serious piece of literary fiction the author seemed to be aspiring to. All that being said, I'm sure this book has an audience, and that the people for whom it's intended will no doubt enjoy their time with it. The Crane Husband ultimately wasn't for me, and it's a shame, because there's something there that I found really enticing regardless of the what I perceive to be its shortcomings.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital review copy of this book.

After reading The Girl Who Drank the Moon last year, Kelly Barnhill shot up my list of authors to watch. She has a way of conveying a story to the reader that is lyrical and atmospheric while remaining deeply tied to a strong and compelling narrative. I was thrilled to receive an Advanced Reader Copy of The Crane Husband. I have not read "The Crane Wife," but Kelly's storytelling is so strong that it didn't matter one bit. Through this book flows a strand of menace and discomfort, ever-present and yet not off-putting. I was drawn into this tale and couldn't put it down, reading late into the night to see where the journey would end. A beautiful book.

I will admit to being ...quite lost about this one. The book itself was beautiful and I read it very quickly but when I think about the plot and messages I feel as though I missed something.

I did really like the look at parentification, but the combination of a parochial setting and a vague dystopia was confusing.

I also would likely benefit from knowing the original myth because the fact that the woman was living with a literal crane?? Confused me.

For the eldest daughters, small town children of divorce, and fans of modern folklore. Novellas sometimes feel rushed or incomplete, but Barnhill is an expert. Reading this felt like sitting down at a campfire in the desert and listening to a master storyteller. I couldn't put it down. A sinister man-sized crane doesn't feel out of place in Barnhill's dystopian rural town, which is haunted by generational poverty/trauma, domestic abuse, and runaway mothers.

The characters are so grounded that you don't even question the birdmam boyfriend, who could've easily become absurd or distracting. (For real though, the crane is seriously creepy.) The tension continued to ratchet up with each chapter, and the climax had me covering up the page as I read so I didn't accidentally jump ahead.

I hesitate to compare this to anything else but I feel like fans of Carmen Maria Machado would also fall in love with Barnhill's writing- it's got a similar way of using magical realism to explore human horror (and love). 5/5 stars.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

"I rolled my eyes. 'What on earth do you see in him?' I asked.
My mother didn't look away. Her eyes remained fixed on the crane. She let her hand drift away from her face and settle on her heart.
'Everything,' she said with a sigh."

As if I had any doubts after reading the literary triumph that was WHEN WOMEN WERE DRAGONS, this has made me sure: Kelly Barnhill is the undisputed master/goddess divine of feminist magical realism. THE CRANE HUSBAND is her elegantly sparse take on an old Japanese folktale, in which a 15-year-old girl fights to hold her family together after her mother invites a menacing, man-sized crane into their lives, whose presence sets them all on a path of seemingly inevitable destruction.

This novella was stunning in its simplicity, even as it traversed enormous emotional depths and weighty themes -- grief and loss, loneliness and female desire, parental absence and generational trauma, abuse and domestic violence and dangerously obsessive love. There were times when the "point" of it felt so straightforward and obvious as to be disarming, yet the evocative and direct prose, the nameless narrator, and the un-fixedness of the time and place all combined to render it utterly transcendent in its meaning and message. This is a story that will change shape and colour every time you read it, in the most beautiful way.

I was excited to read The Crane Husband after reading Barnhill’s When Women Were Dragons. WWWD has been a top handsell for me, but unfortunately I could not connect with TCH. I’m sure fans of magical realism will view the book more favorably.

This book is equal parts incredible, confusing and heartbreaking. At times I wasn't entirely sure if the crane was meant to be a metaphor or if the whole thing was magical realism. But I feel like those blurred lines are what makes The Crane Husband so unforgettable. It was extremely clear, however, the way our unnamed female narrator and her brother suffer through parental neglect and the need to grow up faster than they should have.

It's not an easy book to review because all I can think about is the pain of the character and every she had to endure, but it's incredibly written.

This novella is a retelling of the Crane Wife, which is a story I was not familiar with and had to Google after I finished it. The plot centers on a 15 year old girl (unnamed) who is holding her small Midwestern family together after her father died several years prior. Since then, it's always been her, her mom and her much younger brother Michael (the only named family member), though with her mother's dreamy artist personality, it's mostly just her and her brother, until her mother brings home a 6 foot tall crane. The crane is abnormal and menacing, wearing a mishmash of ill fitting human clothes and their mother is so under his spell (in love?) that she doesn't see him for the threat he is. As time goes on, the girl gets more worried, as her mother cuts herself off from them, has mysterious wounds all over her, and their money and supplies dwindle to nothing. This story focuses on the girl's brave attempts to save her family and keep it together, though things don't always work out like we hoped they would. While I was confused by most of it, this is a story worth reading, and will have you thinking about it long after you finish it.

This book is a devastating, beautifully written fable about who bears the brunt when our lives don’t turn out as planned. A teenage girl, already parentified by a mother who outsources the mundane drudgery of daily living and the bulk of the care of her first grader brother to her, must decide what to do when a destructive crane enters their lives and snaps away their mother’s attention and ability to make a living through her art. Any oldest daughter with immature parents will see herself reflected in these pages.

I liked this a lot. It had really dark and unsettling vibes throughout, and the writing was good. The crane man was disgusting, like he was supposed to be.
The only thing I didn't quite understand/felt could have been omitted, was the whole thing with the drones and how humans are no longer needed for farm-work. But maybe it's just me who doesn't see the relevance to the rest of the story?

Many thanks to Tor Publishing Group and Netgalley, who provided me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is for those who love fairy tales, precocious narrators, and open endings.

This book is not for those unable to read about domestic abuse.

I considered revisiting the story of the Crane Wife before tucking into this book but ultimately decided not to. I’m happy to say you’ll be fine if you’re not familiar with the original. This is more of a conversation with the Crane Wife than a direct retelling, and the story gets discussed by the characters.

Though fantasy, this book is also extremely grounded. I found the main character to be charming and believable for her age and circumstances. I feel like this is a book that could appeal to an assortment of age ranges and spark good conversation between older and younger readers. If I had children, it’s the sort of thing I’d like to read to them.

I also appreciated the inclusion of Michael and the narrator’s sibling dynamic. The love really shone through, without feeling cliché or saccharine. Barnhill is really a masterclass is showing and not telling, except for where telling is necessary.

Kelly Barnhill’s writing is lovely – graceful and descriptive without ever even approaching overkill. The sections on art were particularly compelling. Visual mediums can be so hard to pin down in prose, but I felt like I could almost see the tapestries in front of me. She has put a lot into a very short novel. I read this in two sittings and could see myself returning to it in the future. It seems like the kind of book that would reward rereading.

Without going into spoilers, I absolutely loved the ending of this book. I think it struck the perfect emotional balance, and I love love love the questions Barnhill left unanswered.

I can’t wait for this book to come out so I can discuss it with my friends. It was a pleasure from cover to cover.

This is a retelling of The Crane Wife, which I am not very familiar with, but the message about domestic violence brought a lot to the story and made me think. I got the feeling that you're not really supposed to know when this story takes place: it seems to be near-future, but that isn't really relevant to the story. It could really be set in any time. The unnamed narrator, a young teenager, was a strong character doing her best to hold herself and her family together despite being only fourteen or fifteen years old. I've noticed a trend in Barnhill's work of transformation, and the women of the girl's family transforming into birds was quite similar to the Dragoning in When Women Were Dragons. The domestic violence instigated by the crane husband was chilling to read, as was the mother's response to it, because even though it was a bird, you can easily see how this happens in real life. The ending made me so sad, even more so because it was realistic.

I read When We Were Dragons back in June and thought Kelly Barnhill was absolutely brilliant. She has only elevated herself in this novella. The Crane Husband reads like a myth from Ovid's Metamorphoses. It doesn't shy away from the dark parts of reality and left me feeling deeply for the characters. I will be reading more of Kelly Barnhill in the future!

This is one of those stunning novellas that you're going to be hearing hype about tons between now and its release date, as well as in next year's end of year awards. There's a truly stunning amount of layers to this, but the core of the story is this - a mother brings home a six foot crane boyfriend to her two children who have just lost their father, told from the point of view of the oldest daughter. It's a retelling of the Crane Wife, but it's also about a sister trying to protect her younger brother and keep her family afloat, the things that you're willing to overlook when you're in love, women's hunger and the stories that are told about them, and the longing to be able to put down your responsibilities, with just a hint of near future sci-fi. This is going to be one that I am probably going to come back to again and again and will be recommending to everyone I know. Pick this up when it comes out in February. You won't regret it.

"I wasn't particularly worried about the crane.
I should have been worried about the crane."

That was peculiar. Disclaimer: I had never heard of the Crane Wife before going into this story and I didn't know what to expect. About halfway through I started to feel vaguely confused and underwhelmed so I googled it. You'll have a greater appreciation for the story if you know about the original folklore.

The Crane Husband is tragic. Family cycles of abuse, terminal sickness, death, abandonment, poverty, and the adultification of children, all take place. There are very emotionally heavy themes being handled here, that are all being told through the eyes of a fifteen-year-old girl who's name you never learn. Her mother is a selfish artist, who comes from a long line of farmers, who were known to be "hard men". The family legend goes, that when the youngest child turns five the mothers turn into birds and fly away. The daughter then steps up to take over her role until the cycle repeats. However, the grandfather lost the farm to a conglomerate and now they just own the farmhouse and a barn where her mother created her tapestries.

The setting through me off a first. The farm is discussed, and you get the idea that the characters are living a rustic lifestyle. So, I had it in my head that they were living in the 90's early 2000's. However, that lifestyle was juxtaposed to the fields, that they used to own, being run by a conglomerate, who spends an unfathomable amount of money on drones and self-driving tractors that allow people in an office to monitor the fields. It was an interesting creative choice, that leaves the reader with a very stark sense of imbalance every time it's mentioned.

When I go into retellings, I have realized I assume that the setting is either in the past or is fantastical. It was unexpected to have The Crane Husband take place in a dystopian near future. Part of the reason is because when we are introduced to the crane, it is literally a giant bird walking into this farmhouse kitchen. I struggled to merge that with the futuristic setting, in part I believe, because when technology is advanced in books there tends to be a lack of magic. So, to have the dystopian aspect of the setting merge with the magical realism of the character was a bit challenging for me.

Overall, The Crane Husband was bizarre but poignant. A lot of emotional and dark themes brought forward in the novella. I prefer the authors other works more compared to this one but can appreciate what they have done here.

I binged this entire novella in an hour. A classic story, but somehow fresh and original. THE CRANE HUSBAND was mystical, magical, wonderful... and something to look forward to.