Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

OH man, the combination of my book amnesia and this series not being particularly memorable really didn't do me any favours in terms of understanding the position the characters are in. Thankfully the author does a pretty good job of weaving recaps into the first few chapters (as she did in the second book), which definitely helped with giving my memory that little kick it needed.

You know what I really like about this book? There's a character with my name! And she's actually a pretty cool character! That never happens! The only other book where I've seen my name is The Lies of Locke Lamora. And there, it's used for the "Goddess of Ubiquitous Maladies". So perhaps not the most favourable of characters. But I digress.

Unfortunately, as with the other books in the series, the writing is the main downfall of King. It just has a flavour of being quite clumsy overall. I found the dialogue was especially stilted, perhaps because the author was trying to write in a medieval/high fantasy sort of style, but couldn't quite manage it. The un-Koreanness of the book was quite jarring for me as well, as a Korean. Like the name "Kira". I really still don't understand that as a "Korean" name...

The romance was a bit frustrating, with Kira resisting Jaewon's advances for some reason that was never really quite apparent to me despite it being ridiculously obvious that she liked him. Something that was done quite well was the building of the tension in the main climactic action scenes towards the end of the novel- with the romance playing a role here too.

I feel like things overall weren't explored to as great a degree as I would have liked, but that probably just reflects the fact that this book is low young adult/middle grade.

Ratings
Overall: 5/10
Plot: 3/5
Romance: 3/5
Writing: 3/5
World Building: 3/5
Characters: 4/5
Cover: 3/5