Parts of the book reminded me a bit of the K-drama titled “Guardian: The Lonely and Great God” / Goblin / 쓸쓸하고 찬란하신 – 도깨비. However, in terms of the mythology and fantasy aspect of the book, I liked it. Maybe that sounds silly but personally I never felt truly immersed, and I simply remember being so compelled and in love with the descriptions and world-building of the first book that Vicious Spirits seemed to fall so flat. I also felt this book lacked the atmospheric setting of the first book.
The simplicity and normalcy of the ending, though, made me reconsider my initial feelings about their budding romance as I felt like they were finally able to put the past behind them in order to move forward. I feel like this makes me sound a bit shallow but the beginning of their romance felt forced. In terms of the romance between Somin and Junu, I wasn’t wholly convinced until the last couple of pages.
Yena rubbed me the wrong way in the first book, so I had trouble connected with Miyoung’s feelings for Yena in this book. I think this also really threw me off from the story as a whole. I struggled with Miyoung’s feelings toward her mother, Yena, especially after the cruel things Yena did in the previous book. I want to say he wasn’t really needed overall but I don’t remember if he played a vital role in WF) and that Miyoung finally came to accept that she can have friends despite what she’s thought about herself in the past. I liked the positive friendship between Somin and Jihoon (though I did feel Changwan got thrown into the mix for no reason whatsoever in this sequel. I liked how we got more of Somin and Junu’s backstory, especially how Junu came to be a dokkaebi. I expected this book to focus mainly on Somin and Junu, which it did but I felt like going to Miyoung and Jihoon’s perspective really took away from the former two characters’ story. I mean, I read my review of the first book and remembered the general premise so I didn’t have any qualms about not re-reading the first book. I definitely didn’t love this as much as I did Wicked Fox, and I’m not quite sure if it’s because I went into this book without re-reading the sequel, which is something I like to do when a new book in a series comes out of if it’s the last book in the series. Lingering between a 3.5 and a 4 star rating but for now I’ll settle at a 3.5.
0 kommentar(er)
