The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea

Looks like I'm having a good time this year reading YA fantasies which are based on Asian mythology/folklore and I'm glad to add this book as well to that list. I've been eagerly waiting to read it since the announcement, and the gorgeous cover only cemented my belief that I would love it. I was ecstatic when I got an advance listening copy and it was truly worth all the wait.

The inside of the book perfectly matches the outside. The writing here is absolutely stunning - the author creates such a lush and vibrant world borne out of myths that even me who has zero imagination could picture the sea god's city in my head. The alleys, the pavilions, the gardens and lakes and food, the various spirits and beasts of myths and the gods and goddesses - it all adds up to a world which feels both real and dreamlike, somewhere I wished I could travel to as well. The pacing is also pretty fast, with the author throwing us in the middle of the action right from the first page and then keeping it up all throughout; but there are also many lovely and soft moments of wonder and love and hope and it all ends up being a perfect balance in storytelling. There are quite a few thrilling action sequences which were both exciting and very tense, and I really enjoyed them. I also loved the author's use of flashbacks as well as stories within stories to evoke various emotions among the reader and I felt magically transported every time I heard a new story. The beautiful story is well complemented by the narrator Rosa Escoda whose enchanting voice kept me hooked and I couldn't stop listening.

Mina is such a wonderful protagonist. Yes, she can feel like a typical YA heroine who has to sacrifice her life to save the world but she truly is special. Because she isn't the chosen one - she chooses to be the one, so that her brother can have his love. Her love for her family is her strength throughout and whenever she feels unsure or lost, she derives hope by reminiscing about them and finds herself renewed in purpose. She is also extremely compassionate, moved by the plight of the sea god and wanting to do her very best to help him break his curse and take away his loneliness and despair.

In her new found purpose, she is ably supported by a whole host of characters and I'm absolutely in love with every single one of them. Mask, Tai and Miki are the first trio she meets in the spirit realm and though she doesn't know them, she finds trusting them easy and all three of them help Mina in multiple dangerous situations. Mask is mysterious, Tai is a delightful but brave boy and Miki is the most adorable baby, and they are instantly lovable. Then we might next trio who become indispensable in her quest to save the sea god as well as her people. Namgi is ever cheerful and talkative, forming a deep friendship with Mina pretty quickly. Kirin is more reserved and grumpy but he is loyal as ever and his steadfastness is commendable. But it is Shin who steals our heart, maybe not right at the beginning but slowly, with his protective nature, his willingness to fiercely defend the sea god and the city, and trusting Mina to solve such an immense curse. His relationship with Mina is so well written and delicious that I could weep.

To conclude, this book was everything I wanted it to be and more. It has all the elements of a great YA fantasy - strong female character, both amazing blood and found families, a wondrous tale of curses and gods and fate and adventure, a vibrant world taken right out of Korean mythology, and ultimately a story of love, family, duty and hope. I'm absolutely delighted that I got to experience this tale and I can't wait to read the author's future works.

Wow!  If you are into anime this book gives off major anime vibes.  This book is a retelling of Korean mythology.  Mythology is not really an area I get super pumped about but, this book was fabulous.  This book follows Mina, who sacrifices herself to be the sea god's bride to save her brother, his girlfriend, and her entire village.  She travels to the spirit realm, which is filled with all sorts of creatures, gods, and spirits.  Instead of finding herself preparing to be the sea god's bride she finds herself tethered to another god.  Mina must figure out how to get back to the sea god to save her family.  The only problem is she only has 30 days to do it.  Mina must also navigate the many dangers for a human in the spirit realm.   The story is about love, not just romantic love but love for family, past and present, and love and compassion for all people.  The cover is stunning.   Axie Oh weaves a magical story with vivid details and descriptions that will have you thinking about them long after you have read it.  There were so many amazing and beautiful quotes in the book.  I found myself happy while reading it and deeply drawn into the story.  I have found nothing that I didn't like about this book therefore I gave it 5 stars.  Thank you netgalley for the ARC.

So, I wanted to love this book like everyone else. But there are a few things that just don???t feel right.

First of all, I was not emotionally infested at all. If it???s my current state of mind or if it???s the rushed romance, I don???t know. About the latter: I feel like the romance in the book was so terribly set up. At one point one of the character says something like ???he says something in a way that ALWAYS makes me tremble???. Always? Girl we are on one of the last pages and you never mentioned this. Whenever a character shares his love for another character I am literally surprised because there were never signs for a looming romance.

Also, we literally learn the main characters last name on page 276. Of the 321.

Also the super random way the emperor comes up to Mina in the end and says ???I dreamt of you - will you be my bride??? wtf?

This is the first book I annotated and I went WILD with the tabs. Pink, however, was for romance and smut. And I only put about 5. I expected more. And that applies to the entire book.

“I was angry at the fate I'd been given. Because I realised that in order for you to have what you want, I'd have to lose the only thing I've ever wanted.”

I'm going to start off by saying the cover for this book is absolutely gorgeous. There are so much detail and care put into the cover that I will treasure it for a long time. This book is a retelling of a Korean myth, one that I am not familiar with, but I loved it all the same. At first I thought it was all a bit dramatic but as the story progressed I fell in love with the characters which resulted in a pleasant read.

I'd like to put it out there that Shin is now one of my favourite characters ever. He is so complex and I loved to watch his progression as a character. Not to say that this didn't mean my heart was shattered multiple times.

2.75 stars. I loved the premise of this book, the story and the setting. unfortunately, the characterization suffers a lot here. First of all, a map would have been helpful. A capital and different houses are mentioned, but nothing is explained in more detail. Characters lack personality, I could not connect with them and it becomes difficult to follow the story, too. it feels like the author put too many ingredients in the recipe, creating a wonderful world and story, yet underdeveloped. it's a pity that the book is too short. some more space could have helped to define the characters in more depth. it's not a book I would recommend. If you look for Asian myths, I would suggest to look somewhere else first, like daughter of the moon goddess or six crimson cranes.

im not mad, im just disappointed

listen, this book had such a cool premise and i LOVED the ideas that the author had for it. the characters were also all very lovely and i wanted to see more of them

but thats where my praise stops, unfortunately. i think this was an issue of “great idea, bad execution”, the writing didnt manage to bring the whole concept across and the plot and pacing issues were blatant.

the romance was lacking severely as well, they are just suddenly in love? there wasnt proper development at all except for them going to place A and then place B and so on. why are they in loveeee i will never knowwww
i was more interested in whatever the two side charas had going on tbh, can we have a story about those two

as much as i hate to say this, i think this would have been better in the hands of a more experienced fantasy writer because the writing was just extremely amateurish and had me bored one too many times

Op zich geen slecht verhaal, maar er mankeerde iets aan de schrijfstijl.
Het was nogal gevoelloos en hakkelig, waardoor ik totaal geen verbinding voelde met de personages of de plot. Dat laatste leunt ook te veel op toeval en gemak. En de obligate romance is extreem onderontwikkeld en gehaast.

Kortom, ik had hier meer van verwacht.

I really enjoyed this book! This is my first novel from Axie Oh, and I'm excited to read her backlist. The atmosphere in this was impecible, and the way the character saw the word was always accurately shown through the writing. I couldn't get enough of this story and it's beautiful writing.




Thank you to Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, Feiwel & Friends, and NetGalley for providing me with an eBook copy to review.

I just finished it!! I loved it so much because the story gave me that feeling of nostalgia and I just didn't want the story to end. The book felt like a warm hug ❤️❤️ I'm so happy I was able to read it now because I don't think I would've done it on my own.


The story was a bit slow at the start but I think it started picking up after 70 pages (maybe??) but I felt the ending a bit rushed.

This book is like a old fairytale, it's fantastical and has an hopeful message that sometimes is so straightforward I felt like it was being written just for me, to help me with my problems, it was (really) like a warm hug

3 stars. I wasn't really blown away by the atmosphere or the romance. The plot was incredibly confusing with Mina forming and breaking a red string of fate several times throughout and it's not explained why until about 3 chapters before the ending. And even the explanation was clunky and left me with unanswered questions. At many points in the story I felt like we were kicking the narrative down the road instead of learning anything about what Mina is supposed to do to save her people. The romance was sweet and quiet but it's not given much time to breathe because we have so many other narrative elements and secrets to figure out. Also, Mina is 16 during the main events of the story and her love interest is immortal so it's a little gross and I feel bad for rooting for them. The book does have studio Ghibli vibes but I felt the execution of the plot was poor.

Loved it, such a powerful tale of family, sacrifices and love. The writing is well paced and the characters well defined, you end up falling in love with them as the protagonist does.

The world feels alive and vivid. It is a short story well written, feels like a warm cup of tea in your favorite sofa. It isn’t a groundbreaking book and it won’t win literary awards but if you want to feel loved and happy I would recommend you read it.

Rating: 4.5 leaves out of 5
Characters: 4/5
Cover: 5/5
Story: 4.5/5
Writing: 4.5/5
Genre: Romance/Historical Fiction/Mythology
Type: Audiobook
Worth?: Yeah

First want to thank Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this in exchange for an honest review! If you like Spirited away than I think you would really enjoy this book. There are certain details that just drew me to the Studio Ghibli movie.

Another thing I wanted to mention is I haven't loved you YA novel since I was a teen, but this book was so well done. I didn't hate the main girl like I usually do. So was so mature and held a level of respect that many YA characters don't get from me. I loved this book.

I rated a 4.5 but rounded it to 5 because it deserved it!

I loved the world the most in this book. Some parts were not really fleshed out and made the world, story and characters appear rather flat and superficial, but it was written so much like a fairytale and quite enjoyable that I didn't mind. I would've loved this more, if there were more details and if it the pace wasn't as fast and had more character-focused scenes, but it was still lovely to read.

The world is beautiful and I'd love to see it come to life. I liked the messages of the book and the imagery and metaphors that went along with it. But it felt like the story skipped at some parts or transitions were too choppy. While the main characters were fully developed, the recurring side characters didn't have much dimension to them. This was a missed opportunity to add more depth.  

“[...] Ho capito che, se tu ottieni ciò che vuoi, io perdo l'unica cosa che abbia mai voluto.”


Allora allora allora... da dove comincio?
Da una parte ho avuto l'impressione che il libro fosse più un riassunto della storia e non un romanzo completo, questo mi ha impedito di essere davvero presa dalla storia, complice il fatto che i “plot twists” fossero ovvi e serviti su un piatto d'argento.

Ma dall'altra parte... forse la semplicità della narrazione ha un suo perché, se da un lato la cosa diventa snervante a lungo andare, dall'altro rende la lettura cento volte più scorrevole.
E l'ambientazione? Le vibes? Perfette, chef's kiss 🤌🏻
Quindi che dire? Non è stata una lettura all'altezza delle aspettative ma è stata comunque carina, ed ha un suo perché.q