It's the last of the I's everybody.
Song Vibe Check:
"Shinigami eyes" By: Grimes
"Middle of the night" By: Elle Duhe
"Voices" By: Hidden Citizens and Vanessa Campagna
Note: I got an eARC by Netgalley to be able to read this ahead of the release date. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Usually any mention of dragons and assassins has me excited and I am bound to read it. I heard Korean mythology being mentioned and that also intrigued me, so I had high expectations in reading this book, thinking it would be a blockbuster.
It definitely missed the mark on many parts. But before I dive into the messy, wacky nature of this debut that i'm guessing will still be fun for others to read, let's go through the basics.
Short summary: Lina, an assassin with severe survivor's guilt steals a rug and rips it apart, gaining the attention of the pied piper who she hates, then falls in love with right as her sister's life is being threatened by the assassin clan that raised her.
Longer summary? A round of many BIG OOFS and OOPSIES. We start off with Shin Lina, an asassin assigned to steal a rug wth valuable jewels, challenging the Dokkaebi, the immortal fox-like spirits who steal mortals from their lands and stolen away to never be seen again. When she attracts the attention of the Pied Piper who she definitely hates, he steals her boss who she wants dead away. And while she hates her boss Kalmin, who was responsible for the deaths of all her friends, she is ordered by the order she works in to retrieve the boss from the Pied Piper's clutches or watch her younger sister, Eunbi get murdered.
So, she finds the Pied Piper who offers her a deal: He'll return Kalmin back to her ONLY if she can kill him in fourteen days. And from here, it is a pretty much predictable plot: flashbacks of the past, pretending to hate him and being obnoxious while he is condescending with her until they fall in love and then the face all their enemies and an opening for a second book appears.
I wanted to enjoy this story. I really did, but you can tell it's a debut with the little tells of it being someone's first book. My main issue with this book was the overwhelming use of the "I" in this book.
SERIOUSLY. There were so many instances of "I said" "I stumbled" "I scowled" and I (and every other possible action that could be tied with the I in it) that it became a struggle to get through it. There was a lot of telling and not that much showing and the author dwelled on descriptions rather than the dialogue which led to a very stunted growth of characters that were supposed to stick with us.
Most of the men in this book are either: annoying, arrogant, or simply bound to fail and be mean in some way. Even the pied piper who is supposed to be the love interest, did not feel so memorable to me. It was also a very ridiculous plot that felt a bit outlandish to me.
It went from stealing a rug to her boss getting kidnapped to her trying to steal her sister away from getting killed. She gets herself whisked away by the Pied Piper who she already had admitted was charming and beautiful and then proceeds to pretend to hate him by using her pent up anger to try to kill him. I would have enjoyed the enemies to lovers if the characters would have been better developed.
By the end of the book, I wasn't as concerned or worried for the characters as I should be. People get killed, the two lovers fight to stay alive together, one is at the edge of death and "cool" powers appear and then BOOM it ends for a book two to be on the horizon, but as much as I usually stick to the end to see if things get better or worse, this is where it ends for me.
My advice: For people who are more familiar with Korean mythology, it might be more meaningful and may be more entertaining for you to read, but while I saw glimpses of the Korean culture in this novel, it isn't the type of story that enraptures you and has you begging to read the next book.
Overall: 2/5 stars
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