I think this year either I really like the first book of the series (this book, The Stardust Thief, The Girl from the Well) or I dislike it/dnf it (Lightlark, The School for Good and Evil). Luckily, this definitely wasn’t the case with this book. I went in expecting an interesting plot and characters. What I got was something much more. A fascinating, intriguing plot, rich world-building, and compelling characters.

I liked that it had a bit of a retelling and I really liked that the book was inspired by Korean mythology. I liked that I had to look up what different terms meant (or that I sometimes didn’t have to because context clues were enough). Though I had an audio copy so I looked at others’ reviews for the spelling first. Next time I’ll definitely read a physical/ebook version so I know how to say and spell the words (because I’m not familiar with them).

Lina, being the main character, was well-written and lively, and fun to follow. She loves her sister, Eunbi, so much that she’s literally willing to try to kill a Dokkaebi Emperor – a powerful spirit in Korean mythology. When she speaks of her sister, it’s of love and affection and you can understand her reason for doing all this. You want her to complete the task because it means she’ll see her sister again. There’s a bit of chronic pain representation in the book because Lina’s left leg is damaged from a (knife) injury, and I’m guessing nerve damage too, by the sound of it. The pain she felt when she landed wrong or fell and hurt her leg – I felt that all throughout – in fact I think my legs were also reading the book and wanted to join in.

At first I thought it was another immortal falls for the 17-20 girl (Lina’s 18 or 19) book – but turns out that Dokkaebi age much slower than humans – so he’s technically twenty, and also centuries old 😄. I much prefer that than an actual immortal – vampire or something, interested in a barely legal person.

The Dokkaebi Emperor, Haneul Rui, was a fantastic character. He’s witty, mysterious, and intriguing and I think like that Lina liked that, even though she won’t admit that. I liked him from the get-go, so I kept telling Lina to just kiss him 😄. Of course she didn’t listen to me! The book’s main trope is enemies-to-lovers and it delivers on that plenty. I mean Lina literally has to kill him so she can return a prisoner and then her sister will be safe. And I loved seeing it slowly turn from ooh I want to kill you to fine you’re slightly tolerable and then we started the path of hmm I’m starting to like you which leads very quickly into the path of I want to protect you because I love you route. Another trope I loved seeing was the who hurt you trope, done by Haneul Rui. I think even before he realises he likes her he doesn’t want to see her get hurt. But, he also knows that she can take care of herself, which I could tell he also liked. 

The world-building is spectacular and lush. I never felt bored with the writing because I always wanted to know more about everything. The world, the characters, the food (always the food). It was a rich reading experience as there was so much to take in and enjoy thoroughly. The mythology and culture were interspersed so well with fantasy but I think Korean mythology and its culture has a lot of roots in fantasy. Kim did a stellar job at that, I could really see how much work and research she put into the novel.

Jaine Ye was a great narrator and I’ll definitely look out for her other books as well. I liked that she sounded young because Lina is young! I could tell that Ye enjoyed the time she had narrating the book – I don’t know how to explain that I could hear it but I could. It’s just that some narrators sound like they’re a bored reading the book and that makes listening to the book harder (especially when audiobooks are my main format now).