This book is a great example of a reluctant protagonist story. Jebi is, truth be told, hardly protagonist material at all. They’re more of an everyman. They don’t start off with any particularly strong convictions, and even when the plot forces them to develop some, their beliefs stay kind of fuzzy. They react instead of forming their own goals. On the few occasions when they take action, they opt for choices that are hard to describe as anything other than… uh… sort of stupid. They wonder very little about the world around them and it’s always a surprise revelation to them when they realize other people’s/being’s experiences are not like their own. When things work out in their favor, it’s nearly always through someone else’s actions.

The story is actually full of characters who would make far better protagonists for a resistance story at a glance. Bongsunga, Jebi’s sister, has better goals, stronger motivations, and deeper wounds. Vei has a far more complex and high-stakes arc, not to mention a more compelling personality. Even Arazi, the automaton dragon, while given voice by Jebi, ends up with a more solid agenda and a unique, compelling perspective. And yet the way Jebi’s life is intertwined with all of theirs makes them work as a main character. Through them, all of those bigger, stronger stories are woven together into a solid fabric, and they also show the classic rebellion narrative from a far less classic side. 

Reading this, I kept getting flashbacks about reading Torn by Rowenna Miller. The two books don’t have that much in common, but in Torn, the protagonist also lives in a difficult, oppressive social situation (though in her case it’s fantasy-France on the eve of revolution and not fantasy-Korea getting invaded by fantasy-Japan), also has a sibling involved with the rebels, and also prefers to make do with the cards she’s given instead of considering the possibility of change. The similarities just about end there, but my feelings reading the two books were almost the same. I find it so, so hard to empathize with protagonists like that. This “making do” goes against my personal morals, convictions, and life experiences in the most jarring ways. It’s weird, but a honest outright villain protagonist is easier for me to stomach and follow with interest than these victims turned accomplices who illustrate that “silence of the good people” concept. But that’s also why I feel it’s important for me to read about characters like that. Whether I like that or not, the real world is full of people just like that. The lens of fiction helps me understand how they might come to make their choices and form their opinions, as well as accept that their perspectives may be more nuance than I’m tempted to give them credit for. It’s one of those issues when confronting something in a story first makes dealing with it in real life a bit simpler. So in that sense, this book was a 100% valuable experience. But damn, was it a frustrating one.

I liked the prose: it felt simple and to the point, but amidst the simplicity there were also a bunch of words I had to look up, and a bunch of them were the kind of oddly specific descriptors I didn’t know I desperately needed to know. The blend of magic and technology in the worldbuilding was exciting, though I could use a bit more clarity in the way the magic system is presented, given how important it is to the plot. The way the concept of colonizers taking away the conquered nation’s culture and repurposing it for their own ends is made literal was kind of brilliant, in a horrifying sort of way, and gave me chills. Arazi was easily the best part of the story with its outlook, its earnest curiosity about everything around it, and its eventual moral choices. I kept wondering what other automata might be like if they were given voice and freedom to act, too. I’m also, predictably, a big fan of how queernormative the setting ended up being and how Jebi being nonbinary is completely, utterly normalized. This isn’t a book about being nonbinary, it’s a book with a nonbinary character, and I really, really liked the rep here. 

As for the plot… The bones of it were good, I think, but the routes the narrative took between the big plot points were often questionable. Sometimes, it felt like things happened just because the author wanted them to happen, and other times, what should have been a logical consequence of Jebi’s lack of common sense just stalled for a few chapters. There were also aspects of worldbuilding that felt oddly tacked on, such as one of the characters being a gumiho—it was so underexplored. I also don’t think I’m a fan of the whole Moon thing. On the other hand, it’s possible that I’m looking at the setting from a westerner perspective and not catching some nuance.