Take a photo of a barcode or cover
bonnybonnybooks 's review for:
The Red Palace
by June Hur
I read this entire book while forgetting it was YA and thought it was adult fantasy. The YA genre explains why it felt a little simplistic. Not that YA can't be sophisticated - it certainly can - but in this instance the writing did feel a little "young" for an adult fantasy.
This book gets bonus points for being set in 18th century Korea and not being a complete downer of a novel about how Terrible It Is and how Oppressed Women Are. It has a love story! That's not tragic! While there has certainly been an increasing number of books set in the historical past outside of the United States and Western Europe, the majority of them continue to be Tragic Books (not that Western Europe and the US escape a glut of Tragic Historical Fiction, but at least there's so many historical fiction books that you can find mystery/romance/etc. books as well). So any book set in 18th century Korea that is not terrible and is not tragic catches my attention.
A historical mystery following Hyeon, a palace nurse, who investigates the murder at her old nursing school, it also has a romance in the form of detective prodigy Eojin, who is also investigating the murders. There is also palace intrigue, since everyone is scheming against everyone else and Hyeon finds herself caught up in it against her will.
Despite the gruesome murders, it doesn't feel that dark. And despite the threat of death/banishment/torture, it doesn't feel that high stakes. This made it a little slow, but easy to get through. The major downside of the book is the simplistic characterizations, which probably contributed to the low stakes. The resolution of Hyeon's complicated relationship with her father is one example of this ().
This book gets bonus points for being set in 18th century Korea and not being a complete downer of a novel about how Terrible It Is and how Oppressed Women Are. It has a love story! That's not tragic! While there has certainly been an increasing number of books set in the historical past outside of the United States and Western Europe, the majority of them continue to be Tragic Books (not that Western Europe and the US escape a glut of Tragic Historical Fiction, but at least there's so many historical fiction books that you can find mystery/romance/etc. books as well). So any book set in 18th century Korea that is not terrible and is not tragic catches my attention.
A historical mystery following Hyeon, a palace nurse, who investigates the murder at her old nursing school, it also has a romance in the form of detective prodigy Eojin, who is also investigating the murders. There is also palace intrigue, since everyone is scheming against everyone else and Hyeon finds herself caught up in it against her will.
Despite the gruesome murders, it doesn't feel that dark. And despite the threat of death/banishment/torture, it doesn't feel that high stakes. This made it a little slow, but easy to get through. The major downside of the book is the simplistic characterizations, which probably contributed to the low stakes. The resolution of Hyeon's complicated relationship with her father is one example of this (