Last of the Talons

I think this year either I really like the first book of the series (this book, The Stardust Thief, The Girl from the Well) or I dislike it/dnf it (Lightlark, The School for Good and Evil). Luckily, this definitely wasn't the case with this book. I went in expecting an interesting plot and characters. What I got was something much more. A fascinating, intriguing plot, rich world-building, and compelling characters.

I liked that it had a bit of a retelling and I really liked that the book was inspired by Korean mythology. I liked that I had to look up what different terms meant (or that I sometimes didn't have to because context clues were enough). Though I had an audio copy so I looked at others' reviews for the spelling first. Next time I'll definitely read a physical/ebook version so I know how to say and spell the words (because I'm not familiar with them).

Lina, being the main character, was well-written and lively, and fun to follow. She loves her sister, Eunbi, so much that she's literally willing to try to kill a Dokkaebi Emperor – a powerful spirit in Korean mythology. When she speaks of her sister, it's of love and affection and you can understand her reason for doing all this. You want her to complete the task because it means she'll see her sister again. There's a bit of chronic pain representation in the book because Lina's left leg is damaged from a (knife) injury, and I'm guessing nerve damage too, by the sound of it. The pain she felt when she landed wrong or fell and hurt her leg – I felt that all throughout – in fact I think my legs were also reading the book and wanted to join in.

At first I thought it was another immortal falls for the 17-20 girl (Lina's 18 or 19) book – but turns out that Dokkaebi age much slower than humans – so he's technically twenty, and also centuries old