Summary:

Floods sweep away villages, wars are waged across the country and storms destroy the harvest. The people believe that this is the way the Sea God punishes them. To appease him, each year a girl is sacrificed to the sea as the Sea God’s bride.

This year, it is the turn of Shim Cheong, a beautiful young woman many believe to be the one to finally end the storms. However, Mina interferes with the ceremony. To protect the woman her older brother loves, Mina throws herself into the water instead of Cheong.

In the spirit realm, she tries her best to break the curse that has been threatening her people for so long. Finding new friends and being confronted with new dangers, she is determined to save her people and family.

Review:

I have to admit, the reason I picked up this book was mainly due to the gorgeous cover… plus, it was one of those rare fantasy standalones which really fit into my reading schedule. As you might now, I am currently in the middle of reading A Song of Ice and Fire which is quite a complex fantasy series and I have also started reading the His Dark Materials trilogy (I borrowed the books from my friend more than half a year ago and want to be able to give them back to her), so I didn’t want to start another fantasy series and maximise confusion. The book seemed like the perfect option, it was short (about 300 pages), a standalone (=low commitment) and the gorgeous cover and blurb finally convinced me that I would really enjoy reading this book.

I truly enjoyed reading this book and exploring the fantasy world the author had created based on a Korean folktale. I particularly liked that the world had such a different feeling to it than other fantasy worlds I have read about so far because I tend to struggle with comparing books from the same genre to each other after having found a favourite (this is one of the reasons I really enjoyed reading The Hunger Games but couldn’t really get invested in any other YA dystopian series). The world felt really magical and I loved exploring its different facets as the story unfolded. Unfortunately, due to the shortness of the book, I wasn’t able to spend much time in this place and there are so many more interesting aspects to the world that were not covered in the story.

The same goes for the characters. It was a wonderfull cast of different personalities, each person with their own character traits and motivations. I loved to see them interact with each other and to see how their relationships developed even in the short span of the story. Particularly the fact that there wasn’t a clear distinction between good and evil and each character in the story had their redeeming qualities and also the capability to change made the story a lot more interesting. I only wished that there was more time for the relationships to develop and for me to get to know the characters and spend time with them. I would have loved to see more of the relationship between Mina and her brother Joon, I immediately fell in love with them, despite not seeing much of them on paper. This really is my only point of criticism regarding the book: 300 pages is a great length for everyone who is searching a quick read and want to immerse themselves in a fantasy world for a while but to me it wasn’t sufficient to form an emotional connection to the characters which is the one things that makes a book special to me and that is the distinction between the books I loved and those I can’t stop thinking about and don’t want to let go of. Unfortunately, this is a very personal experience and oftentimes it cannot be logically explained why one book evoked emotions in me and another one didn’t, but that also means that this might be totally different for you!

One aspect I really loved was the writing of this book. The language used to describe the world really made it come to life and I am convinced that the choice of words is really important when it comes to establishing the tone of a story and the atmosphere of the world. The language created a mystical place filled with magic but at the same time, the writing was pretty straight forward and made it easy to follow along. It definitely wasn’t one of those cases where you start a fantasy book and are completely lost in a strange place with no idea what is going on or how everything fits together. That didn’t mean there were no plot twists that I didn’t see coming! To be honest, I am really oblivious to any clues so that might be different to you but there definitely were some revelations I didn’t see coming (however, I am proud to say, there was also one I did see coming…)

Overall, I can recommend this book to anyone who is searching for a unique YA fantasy novel with low commitment. It has all the aspects that make fantasy so magical: a creative and rich fantasy world, a great cast of characters, a little bit of mystery and dangers to overcome. Plus, it is a retelling of a Korean folktale, so if you like retellings and want to discover some fresh stories originating from different cultures, I can highly recommend this novel. It was definitely worth the read!

Things to consider before reading:

There are depictions of violence in the novel. There is also the topic of death, including the mention of the death of a newborn shortly after birth. Other than that, I cannot recall any specific triggers but in case you have any triggers I recommend you to check with another source to be certain.

Disclaimer: This should serve solely as a guide when deciding whether or not to read this book. I cannot guarantee that this list is complete. If you are triggered by something or want to avoid certain topics, please make sure to double check.

Feel free to share your opinion on the book in the comments. I would love to hear what you think about it and whether you liked it!

Please remember to keep the comments spoiler-free or add a Spoiler Alert beforehand so everyone has the opportunity to enjoy the reading experience without already knowing everything that happens.