Okay the cover?? One of the prettiest I’ve ever seen.
This was one of my most anticipated reads of the year and it didn’t disappoint.
The writing, the characters, everything was on point. I can’t wait to read more from this author!

The cover is really pretty and the blurb sounded quiet interesting, but unfortunately the book was not quite my taste. I had the feeling everything was going quite slow and I was not making any progress. And though the idea of the book is great, the story unfortunately could not catch me. I had the feeling the story was quite shallow and on some points even cursorily because there was quite no action happing and the plot was not really catching. Therefore I did not felt animated to read on.
The book is probably more for readers who like or appreciate a rather calm story

Such a gorgeous vivid mythical retelling, of a classic Korean tale, I recommend not reading too much about it and diving straight in!

I didn't read any spoilers about this other than that it was reminiscent of Spirited Away and the Little Mermaid, I didn't know what to picture to combine those two things, and luckily my vision of a singing crab guzzling spelled food and turning into a pig was entirely wrong. The 'Under the Sea' theme transforms into something that is more other-worldly, rather than water and fish-filled, a realm that mortals can't usually access, but is filled with lanterns, streets, shadows, and spirits, and for all of these scenes, I definitely did picture Ghibli imagery, and the world of Spirited Away. Axie Oh did such a good job of making the world feel other and strange, without it feeling forced or too unfamiliar, it weirdly made the whole premise feel plausible, maybe there are lonely gods beneath the waves.

I found myself really liking the heroine, I really loved the beginning and the moment of choice, I love how her decisions were made and, though I saw the ending coming from pretty early on in the book, I still liked it, though, if I'm being super nit-picky, I felt the tension in that section was a little forced...just a little.

If you are looking for a lot of world and character-building, then this probably isn't for you, it's not deep and the characters are not very complex, especially the side characters, but if you just love a quick read, with a bit of adventure, magic, mystery and escapism then this is for you. I really enjoyed it, I thought it was well-written, and flowed really nicely, and I could picture the world really well, even though not much is explained or explored (it's a standalone novel after all, not a fantasy epic), and there were a couple of passages that had me in tears.

Really looking forward to owning a hard copy. Thank you to Netgalley and Hodder&Stoughton for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. I think if you like easy-read Young Adult mythical retelling with gentle romance, this would be a great one to add to your collection. A high four stars!

A Korean legend retold, this fantasy gives you plenty to contemplate.

This beautiful and multilayered story is easy to read, yet you need to stop here and there to think about the characters and their elaborate relationships. The Asian culture is faithfully reflected in the world the author built with traditional clothes, food, flowers, ponds and architecture, and values like family, love, heritage and duty play an important part in the novel. I loved the main characters, the storyline was clever, and there was just the right amount of romance.

This would make a spectacular movie.

I am grateful to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for this Advance Review Copy.

While I am absolutely loving the influx of Asian mythology and folklore inspired YA fantasy stories the past few years, this one fell short for me. It felt like an early draft. A few more rounds of editing could have turned this into something unforgettable by tightening up the plot, characters and evening out the pacing. I did read an ARC so hopefully some of these issues were addressed before publication.

That cover though... WOAH! It. Is. Stunning. Absolute cover porn. I think I may have spent more time looking online at the art of Kuri Huang than I did reading this book.

Recommended for fans of: Shadow of the Fox, Six Crimson Cranes, Spin the Dawn, Descendant of the Crane

Thank you to Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the ARC.

*4.25 Stars*

I jumped into this book knowing very little about it and I think that's the best way to read this.

I really enjoyed this. I especially liked the main character Mina. She was so delightfully angry and I love this in girl/woman characters.
i think, the best part of this book for me, was Mina. i just loved loved loved her.
The plot was good too, it took me places I didn't expect and I really had a great time.
But I was a little meh about the romantic relationship, I didn't really see it, I guess, but that might just be a me problem.
I did love the side characters though. I found them all to be layered and interesting, but most of all, the world was beautifully woven and I loved it. I also loved how surprised I was, over and over, the twists and turns left me speechless which I love.

All in all, this was simply a very enjoyable read with layered characters and I'll be keeping my eye out for more by Axie Oh.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a free ARC in exchange for a review.

This book does not pull any punches. From page one, you are thrust into the action, the storm if you will. That's a very funny joke if you've read the book.

One of my big thoughts is how badly I want to read Hyeri and Shiki's story! I'm a sucker for a death god and life gir l romance (Hades and Persephone vibes), so all the hints and details to their story made me desperate for their book too! So Axie Oh, if you wouldn't mind, please give me this.

I really loved the evolution of Shin and Mina's relationship, and I loved the world-building of the undersea kingdom of the gods. This was a really well thought-out, well-planned, yet still surprising and twisty book.

I loved Dai, Miki, and Mask, and the reveal of who they were was so lovely. Especially Miki, wow, that one was right in the heart.

And the ending was really lovely. If you like fairytales and are looking for an atmospheric book with a great heroine and real evolution to its characters, this is a great choice!

Four stars from me!

Anyone who spends any time on the bookish side of social media is going to come across many, many plaintive requests for non-western canon fantasy and fairytales. And thankfully Axie Oh’s The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea is here to sate that hunger. Based loosely on the Korean tale The Tale of Shim Cheong, in which a beautiful young girl throws herself into the sea in order to help her blind father regain his eyesight. Through the grace and favour of the dragon god, she is returned to surface to become the wife of the emperor. Rather that a tale of unparalleled exquisite beauty and pious sacrifice, Oh decides to give us a main character who is fallible, angry, rebellious, layered, hungry and love that isn’t a sweet thing, but something furious and overwhelming. In this story, every year for a hundred years a beautiful maiden is sacrificed to the dragon god in the hope that one will be his true bride and soothe his anger, and the storms that have ravaged the land. When he older brother’s beloved Shim is chosen, Mina instead throws herself into the sea. Determined to save her brother’s heartbreak, and to stop the storms, Mina is going to seek out the Dragon god an make him see what’s happening. She’s just going to have to navigate the underworld, ghosts, demons, monsters, dragons, the red string of fate, her own heart, and the dragon king’s locked door to do so. All before her soul, the living soul that cannot survive the underworld for long, fades away to nothing.
While there were some parts of the story that were a little predictable, when reading something based on a tale as old as Shim Cheong, that can be comfortable. There are enough changes that focus on Mina’s agency and determination, and yes, her anger at the loss and grief that humanity has gone through. The myths and legends of Oh’s heritage are treated with love and care, with authenticity, but not so much depth of detail as to put off a reader without any familiarity. There is enough romance to warm the heart, but also a beautiful focus on family. There is a mention of a child death that I would add as a content warning for anyone who has a sensitivity to it, but it is treated with gentleness. Extra points for a few lovely gentle side romances, and some subtle “everyone can see it but them” queer longing.
For fans of Zen Cho, Sue Lynn Tan (seriously, go read them if you haven’t), and for everyone desperately waiting for book three in Nghi Vo’s Singing Hills books (and seriously, SERIOUSLY go and preorder her golden age Hollywood/ fairyland queer magical realism The Siren Queen).

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea is a breathtakingly beautiful and haunting tale that is brought to life by Oh’s descriptive prose. As Mina falls beneath the waves and then walks through an abandoned village, everything was brought to life in mind with every word. The visualisation was so strong that I didn’t feel as though I was reading a book most of the time; I was right there alongside Mina, experiencing what she experienced.

Another of the things I liked about Oh’s writing was the way she chose to imagine indescribable and unseeable things, such as fate and a soul. In The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea fate is seen as a red string, connecting two people and providing the reader with a clear visual. Likewise, the souls of the Sea God’s brides are represented by birds. Fate and souls are two concepts that can mean something completely different depending on where you’re from, your culture or your beliefs, and by unifying them with a specific visual Oh unites the visualisation. The reader is “seeing” the same thing, and it also makes it less confusing by having a solid construct; souls have a tendency to be explained as some glowy intangible thing. In The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea they are real, they are tangible and things can happen to them. The same goes for fate.

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea is a retelling of the Korean folktale “The Tale of Shim Cheong” and the original folktale is retold by Mina during the novel. By moving the tale away from Shim to Mina, to a girl who was not intended as the Sea God’s bride, Oh provides us with a protagonist who is instantly likeable. She’s not the most beautiful girl in the village, she’s just an ordinary person who wants to help. However, it isn’t just that she’s a good person – after all she jumped into the sea instead of someone else – it’s because she did it with just the vaguest of ideas of a plan. Find the Sea God, save village, check. That is as far as Mina had gotten and when she gets beneath the sea she finds that she is way over her head. How many of us have been there? *raises hand*.

She is not the only character that was likeable, and in all honesty, I can only think of one I disliked, and you’re supposed to dislike her. Everyone else was genuine and more importantly flawed. Not one of them was perfect. They either worried because they didn’t have something vital, because they had too much of something and didn’t want to become something bad, or because they were lonely and didn’t know how to express their emotions. Even in the Spirit Realm people have their insecurities. When I say people, I’m referring to a diverse range of creatures from Korean mythology that Oh has brought to life in wonderful detail. From the spirits of deceased humans, to mythical sea creatures, gods and goddesses, and demons.

I often find that in most mythological tales the gods and goddesses are one dimensional, not just seen as aloof but completely unable to change in any way. It was remarkable to come across a book where for once they weren’t set in stone, where they were seen to actively change based on events that happened in their lives (on and off the pages), affected by new people entering their lives.

While it is the spirit realm, it is not a realm full of doom and gloom. Mina finds a world that is worried about the Sea God’s sleep and raids by a mysterious goddess, yet still imbued with life and love. The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea is a book of opposites. It’s beautiful and joyful, yet it’s hauntingly emotional and there is one scene especially that will have you reaching for your tissues – I’m not sure if they were unhappy or happy tears (or a mixture of both!) for me! This is a tale about family and found family, of forging your own path while also following fate. Of doing the wrong thing, yet also doing the right thing. In death many characters have found rebirth, and I was strongly reminded of ying and yang, the concept of opposing forces actually be complementary and interconnected rather than total opposites. That is certainly the case in The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea where everything is connected.

I had a lot of theories, and while I had a few things worked out, I never quite connected everything. This is a book that is an emotional rollercoaster filled with twists and turns, and Oh keeps you on the edge of your seat. She feeds the reader just enough to get their imagination going, to keep the story moving but without giving the whole game away.

The one downside to The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea is that it is a standalone novel. It works as one, I have to admit, but as with all books that I love I always want the author to return to that universe and continue the characters’ story. This fact should not dissuade you from reading The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea at all. It is a magical book and one that will whisk you off to a world under the sea, and yes, you may have that song in your head for a few days after reading it ;)

A book absolutely steeped in Korean mythology, this book read like the best of fairy tales. There are people who compare it to a Gibli film and they are absolutely right, from the main character being transported to another word, to the strange spirits helping her along, it reads just like a Gibli movie brought to the page.

I haven't read the original mythology, but I'd really like to. I've always been interested in Asian mythology, though I haven't read much about the Korean ones, but this awoke a desire in me to learn more. I'd like to see the original tale and see how it has been changed and adapted to create this book.

I absolutely adored the main character, Mina. She was strong, stubborn and wilful with ideas about sacrifice and not looking the other way which anyone should admire. She was definitely the just and true heroine of this beautiful fairy tale.

This is definitely a book for the fairy tale or mythology fans, the Gibli fans and just about anyone who enjoys a good story.

I fell in love with the amazing cover and liked the this fairy tale inspired by Korean mythology.
The world building and the characters are well developed, the plot was entertaining and interesting.
This is a light story that kept me reading and i enjoyed it.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This was such a beautiful and engrossing read! I've been waiting for this book for months, and I'm happy to say that it didn't disappoint!

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐄𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐝:
📚 The lyrical and descriptive prose! There's nothing I love more than getting lost in a new book and a new world.

📚 I adore retellings, and I loved seeing how Oh made the tale of Shim Cheong her own. I liked how Oh shifted the focus to her own character, while at the same time making sure that her version of Shim Cheong remains a focal point of the plot.

📚 The world building is STUNNING. Oh took the time to explore every nook and cranny of this magical setting, and I couldn’t get enough of every page. I enjoyed the book as a whole, but my favorite parts have to be Mina just walking and soaking in the atmosphere of this new world she's currently in.

📚 Mina is an incredible heroine - so fierce, loyal, and loving. Everything she does she is either doing for her family or the people around her. She never gives up, and always soldiered on through so many hardships.

📚 The romance was so sweet! It really enriched the story, and I love how it made me both smile and melancholy. (I may or may not have read the last few pages quicker than usual to see how everything ends for our main characters... 😂)

Wow what a book, This book really got me back into fantasy and I adored the writing, I haven't watched Spirited Away, but will definitely be watching soon after reading this masterpiece.

Unfortunately this definitely was not the book for me.
Which was disappointing as I really enjoy reading books that explore Korean mythology and wish there were more. Sadly, for me, the dislike of plot and characters and pacing really brought it down for me.

Firstly for pacing, we do start off with quite a fast paced introduction scene but apart from the repetitive assassin attacks on Mina there is very little plot that takes place for over 70% of this book. Even these attack scenes were boring in their repetitiveness and lack of intensity as characters resolved the fight relatively quickly.

I'm sorry to say I really didn't feel anything for these characters either, I don't think they were fleshed out enough for me and seemed more like placeholder characters reminiscent of oral fairytales rather than a developed fantasy book.
Mina even began to grate on me the further along we got with the baseless and infuriating romance trying to build.
She was set up as a willful and headstrong character at the start who would sacrifice her life to help her brother thus changing her own fate and yet every plot point after this she was just swept away with whatever was happening to her.

The writing style wasn't my taste, I felt it lacked quite a lot of atmospheric description which also made it unclear what was or wasn't a vision.
Altogether a bit of a disappointing read, sadly not for me.

This was such a brilliant read!! I love the cover, the mythology, the depth of the characters and the intriguing plot!!

The girl who fell beneath the sea was a totally whimsical tale and it provided a great fantasy escape! I was a little surprised with how short it was and I feel like some things were a little rushed - I definitely wouldn’t have minded the book being a little longer!! I adored Mina as a main character, she really solidified the strong themes of love, family and fate and was so fun to follow along on her journey. I’m not sure if this is something I would reread, but it was definitely a cute and enjoyable read and I would recommend if you're looking for a quick fantasy standalone.

Thank you to the publisher, netgalley and the author for allowing me to read this eARC, I feel so blessed to be able to have critical conversations about great books and recommend books to my book club.

This is a beautiful cleverly written novel, I loved the cultural insight in this novel and the background build-up that wasn't information dumping, I felt so engrossed in this novel I read it all in two days which is really fast for me.

3.5 stars

Mina lives with her family in a small coastal village. Every year, a young woman is picked as the Sea God's bride, a sacrifice in a bid to ease the devastating storms caused by the Sea God.
The girl chosen as the next Sea God's bride is Shim Cheong, Mina's brother Joon's love. On the night that Cheong is taken out to the sea, Mina follows, jumping into the sea first.
Mina finds herself in the Spirit Realm alongside ghosts and creatures, some of whom don't want Mina to find the Sea God or break the curse that keeps him asleep.
With only one month to wake the Sea God before she will be unable to leave the Spirit Realm, will Mina succeed?

The premise for this book really intrigued me, but I was also slightly hesitant to read it - I tend to have unpopular opinions and was worried I wouldn't like it - but I ended up being glad that I gave it a chance.
Mina was a likeable and relatable protagonist who loved her family and helped others. I enjoyed the glimpses of her life at home that were scattered throughout the book, as well as seeing how Mina reacted in the different situations she was put in while in the Spirit Realm.
I liked a lot of the side characters and the relationships Mina had with them. I would be interested to find out more about them all.
The mythology was interesting, as was the setting of the Spirit Realm.
The plot was fast paced and held my attention throughout. There were several times when I was surprised by something that happened, which doesn't happen very often in YA nowadays.
The writing style was easy to follow, and I would be interested in reading another book by the author, as well as reading this one again at some point.

Overall, this was an enjoyable, unique read that I would recommend.

With strong Spirited Away vibes and based on Korean mythology, this book has quickly become a new favourite. There's a dreamlike quality to the story and I was happy to let it pull me along as I discovered the Sea God's world alongside Mina.

I loved the found family aspect, as Mina found her family and love in old Gods, and in her actual long lost relatives, now spirits in the underworld. This works so well as a standalone, but it's a story I really didn't want to leave.

Storms have plagued Mina’s homeland for decades and it’s thought that only the sacrifice of a young girl to the Sea God can stop them. Mina’s sister-in-law is due to be the next Sea God bride but to protect her family, Mina offers herself instead. Within the Spirit Realm, Mina discovers that the Sea God is asleep and she must wake him in order to stop the storms and restore peace to the world above. But a human can’t survive in the Spirit Realm for long. The world-building within this book is very beautiful and there is so much detail that I could have spent hours, swimming around in the Spirit Realm. There is so much interesting Korean mythology embedded in this exciting, page-turning adventure and even a romance that I was willing to blossom. It has a lot of Spirited Away vibes for obvious reasons but I actually thought it was much more hopeful. The hardback of this book is stunning and I can assure you that judging it by its cover will pay off!