Deadly storms have ravaged Mina’s homeland for generations. Floods sweep away entire villages, while bloody wars are waged over the few remaining resources. Her people believe the Sea God, once their protector, now curses them with death and despair. In an attempt to appease him, each year a beautiful maiden is thrown into the sea to serve as the Sea God’s bride, in the hopes that one day the “true bride” will be chosen and end the suffering.
Many believe that Shim Cheong, the most beautiful girl in the village—and the beloved of Mina’s older brother Joon—may be the legendary true bride. But on the night Cheong is to be sacrificed, Joon follows Cheong out to sea, even knowing that to interfere is a death sentence. To save her brother, Mina throws herself into the water in Cheong’s stead.
Swept away to the Spirit Realm, a magical city of lesser gods and mythical beasts, Mina seeks out the Sea God, only to find him caught in an enchanted sleep. With the help of a mysterious young man named Shin—as well as a motley crew of demons, gods and spirits—Mina sets out to wake the Sea God and bring an end to the killer storms once and for all.
But she doesn’t have much time: A human cannot live long in the land of the spirits. And there are those who would do anything to keep the Sea God from waking…
The Review:
I'm not going to lie, I was 100% drawn to this book because of the amazing cover. I mean, woah...it's one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. I'm also not going to lie, I've seen a lot of people comparing this to Spirited Away, but I can't say if it's similar because I've never seen it. I will absolutely be remedying that shortly, but I'm getting a little sideways here. I adore this story. It's got some of the most loveable characters, women supporting other women, a dragon, and it's just filled to the brim with whimsy. It's a very cute story with an incredible twist that had my head spinning. My only real disappointment was the pacing and lack of some backstory. Some bits seemed rushed, but honestly I'd rather read a fast book than have one saturated with so many details or no real flow that it just becomes rather dull. And being fast paced isn't a negative necessarily, but some of the action scenes in particular seemed as though nothing was really happening or too much was happening without much description. Still, they weren't boring by any means. I also really loved the mythology here; it's just so interesting and a lot of it is cute, for lack of a better word. Perhaps one of my favorite aspects is that the god of death is compassionate. It's small death positive stories that (thank you Caitlin Doughty for the best way of saying that) just kind of make me happy. Yeah, death can be a cruel and seemingly unfair thing, but oftentimes it's a kindness. Plus, it's a little obvious to make a god of death be a bad guy and I liked that he isn't in this instance. Mina is an amazing protagonist to follow. She's sweet, protective, loyal, courageous and I absolutely loooooove that she loves telling stories. Another thing I didn't like as much was not learning Kirin's full history. We find out that he is the last of his people yet never really find out why or what happened. It's also a bit of a similar case regarding to Namgi, though to a lesser extent. I'd have loved to know more about the imugi and why they are basically intrinsically evil. Considering that they are pretty much the only really bad people with actual bad intent, I'd have liked to know why. Nothing and no one else in this book is bad for the sake of being bad, and Namgi is himself not evil despite also being an imugi so I can't really believe that the rest of them are. I mean, if Namgi can choose to be better, why can't the rest of his people? I also don't really understand their alliance with the Goddess of Moon and Memory, and I was especially confused about this at the end of the book. And what ever happened to the original Goddess of Women and Children? If these things had been included or had more foundation, I think this would likely go on my top three favorite book list. Side note: I want to live in the spirit realm so badly, mostly because of the flying fish and ocean creatures. Ultimately, this is a book that has that magical nostalgic feeling of a fairy tale, but likely not one that you've ever heard before and it's because of that that this is one that I suspect will become one that I re-read when I need to be transported to a happier place.
