Red River by Chie Shinohara

Overall Series Rating:
✭ Art: 3.5 Stars
✭ Story: 3 Stars

Series Review:

Red River’s art is gorgeous and impressively consistent throughout all 28 volumes, but it has a distinctive 1980s/90s style. It is not my personal aesthetic preference, so I didn’t vibe with it, but I can objectively appreciate how well done it is.

As far as the story is concerned, it is middling at best. I was almost desperate for it to be over by the time I reached the final volume. The plot is redundant and unnecessarily drawn out into cyclic, mawkish events. Even when the pasts and motivations of the main antagonists come to light, their actions throughout the series still seem nonsensical.

What I do love about Red River is its setting, historical details, and characters. Each of these elements is much stronger than the plot as a whole. I believe this is the only historical fiction I have read set so far back into the past. I love the historical facts sprinkled throughout the series, and I think going so far back in time gave the author a lot more leeway with the fictional aspects of the story. It was great to learn about the Hittite Empire, and I got plenty of Wikipedia-deep-dive fodder from reading this (always a plus in my book).

I think Yuri is a decent protagonist overall. I am a sucker for a story about a girl or woman gaining power and admiration in a man’s world—even better if it’s an ancient man’s world! She might initially be a bit obnoxious and prone to idiotic decisions, but I think that is understandable for a teenager thrown back in time.

My favorite characters are the sisters, Rufasa, and—of course—Aslan (the real MVP of this series). Honestly, I think I was more interested in the shenanigans of the side characters than I was in the romance between the leads.

Overall, I do think Red River is a good series. It just seems too long and melodramatic for my taste. If I had a penchant for soap operas, I might be more into it.

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𝓟.𝓢. This review was crossposted from Goodreads because it contains actual thoughts rather than a typically facetious single-sentence remark. View all my book ratings and pointless takes on Goodreads or The StoryGraph.