A intriguing fairytale mashup starring red riding hood with a rifle and a gender-bent Hou Yi
—Amanda Khong, Bookish Brews
Bookish Brews Snapshot
Burning Roses by S.L. Huang
When Rosa (Red Riding Hood) and Hou Yi the Archer join forces to stop the deadly sunbirds from ravaging the countryside, their quest will take the two women, now blessed and burdened with the hindsight of middle age, into a reckoning of sacrifices made and mistakes mourned, of choices and family and the quest for immortality.
🗺️ Adventure 💫 Atmospheric 🍃 Easy Reading 📘 Standalone
Book Review
Magical, multicultural, interwoven, creative, fairytale mashup
Burning Roses was about… every retelling you could possibly ask for. Mostly, Hou Yi as a woman and Little Red Riding Hood with a rifle. Throw in a little Puss in Boots, Goldilocks, Beauty, and the Beast, and honestly, I’m not sure if that is all. Anyway, as a novella, I’m sure it is clear that a lot was going on here.
I enjoyed this book, because I loved the intermingling of stories from multiple cultures, and adding more representation to it. It was a short piece filled with action, so it was quite easy to read and enjoy. However, because there was so much going on, I think that it overshadowed what Huang was trying to do here. I think the real downfall of this story was that there just wasn’t enough time to draw out everything that SL Huang wanted to include. I thought all the aspects were wonderful, but I wish I had more. Especially since they are all such well-known tales that at some moments it felt a little drawn out.
Each retelling piece happened so fast, that it just felt like I was rereading some children’s books more than a modern retelling. I think for the length there wasn’t enough time to add in quite as many fairytales as there are. Perhaps if there was more space to flesh out all of these stories, it wouldn’t have felt so simplistic in the retellings, and it could have been more creative. Anyway, I enjoyed it, but I definitely want more before I can feel completely satisfied with it.
Burning Roses was fun, and wove together many different fairytales from multiple different cultures while adding more diverse representation, which was super cool! I liked the overarching story and how the characters told stories within the story. But I couldn’t help feeling like it needed to be fleshed out more.
