Written by - Yoon Ha Lee
Published by - Rebellion Publishing Ltd. / Solaris Books
First things first, I got this book from NetGalley, so thank you NetGalley and Rebellion Publishing Ltd. / Solaris Books for this opportunity.
This was not my first exposure of Yoon Ha Lee, I had previously read one short story by the author which made me interested in longer fiction and led me to request this in NetGalley.
This book had a very interesting setting clearly inspired by the Japanese occupation of Korea, which really was used in a thoughtful and charismatic way. The anti-colonial sentiment was expressed in a rather unorthodox way using fantasy. The magic system was also quite unique and brilliantly depicted and kept me going through the pages to find out how it worked as a whole.
Another great thing was the beautiful mechanical dragon Arazi on the cover, which was once again detailed with finesse and was the main star of the book despite appearing after one third of the book. The main character Jebi also brought their unique sense of worldview and his quest to do the right thing. Some of the other characters were also quite interesting despite their minor roles.
But the main problem was the use of pronouns were a bit confusing especially when the author used they/them for only Jebi when the scene included multiple persons. It often distracted from this otherwise engrossing book.
I will give this 3.5 out of 5 stars.
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