Rating: ★★
Audience: YA Fantasy Romance
Length: 416 pages
Author: Sophie Kim
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Release Date: September 27th, 2022
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads
BOOK SUMMARY:
After the destruction of her entire Talon gang, eighteen-year-old Shin Lina—the Reaper of Sunpo—is forced to become a living, breathing weapon for the kingdom’s most-feared crime lord. All that keeps her from turning on her ruthless master is the life of her beloved little sister hanging in the balance. But the order to steal a priceless tapestry from a Dokkaebi temple incites not only the wrath of a legendary immortal, but the beginning of an unwinnable game…
Suddenly Lina finds herself in the dreamlike realm of the Dokkaebi, her fate in the hands of its cruel and captivating emperor. But she can win her life—if she kills him first.
Now a terrible game of life and death has begun, and even Lina’s swift, precise blade is no match for the magnetic Haneul Rui. Lina will have to use every weapon in her arsenal if she wants to outplay this cunning king and save her sister…all before the final grain of sand leaks out of the hourglass.
Because one way or another, she’ll take Rui’s heart.
Even if it means giving up her own.
Thank you to the publisher for an eARC.
YIKES.
I was really excited to read this book and within the first few chapters I saw the downfall was imminent. I love books that have more dialogue than not. And it took 5 chapters for any major dialogue to actually start occurring. This became a theme throughout that made me start passing over paragraphs of incongruous information.
With an enemies to lovers romance I was hoping to latch on to, I was let down here as well. Lina continually came off as immature while Rui was really into her, but without a good basis for the attraction? These two did not connect well, but apparently he wanted to kiss her from the moment he saw her and I don’t believe it for a second.
The relationships (platonic and not) weren’t here either. I wanted to see Lina have one friend, a true bond, someone for her to move forward with and nobody became that person for her. The side characters were one dimensional and only placed in to further the plot occasionally.
There’s other issues I had with some of the sub-plots and OH, YES. The flashback chapters?! Were always out of nowhere and had no merit into the current timeline. Instead of showing us Lina’s character as the book progressed, random flashbacks were thrown in to show that she used to have a found family? IT DID NOT WORK.
Anyways, I’m frustrated with this book clearly. High hopes were dashed and I won’t be continuing the series.
Overall audience notes:
- YA Fantasy Romance
- Language: some strong
- Romance: make-outs & an implied night together
- Violence: high
- Trigger/Content Warnings: loss of friends, murder, kidnapping, poisoning, near drowning and other near death experiences, weapons violence
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