crothe77 's review for:

The God and the Gwisin by Sophie Kim

5.0

emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

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Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy

The God and the Gwisin by Sophie Kim is the third person dual-POV fantasy romance sequel to The God and the Gumiho. Seokga has been searching for Hani’s reincarnation for years and finally the red thread of fate tying them together leads him to her incarnation: Kisa. Only Kisa has already died and is now surviving on a boat in the afterlife and Seokga has to find the person who tried to kill his brother. 

I loved The God and the Gumiho, so I was super excited about this one. The cover is dynamic and it has a lot of my favorite pieces from the last book, including the mystery elements, the tension between Kisa and Seokga, and how well Sophie Kim blends fantasy, mystery, and romance together. This book met my expectations and Sophie Kim is now an autoread author for me because sticking the landing in a genre blend and then adding mythology and K-drama flair once was already hard but doing it twice shows a lot of skill.

The Ship of Theseus thought experiment comes up quite a bit as Kisa and Seokga contemplate their new relationship and its relation to Seokga’s relationship to Hani. Kisa and Hani have different tastes and interests on top of looking different and having different names. Hani was a freeloader when she saw the chance while Kisa was a medical professional at a young age. Hani also lived for hundreds of years as a gumiho while Kisa was a shaman. They’re very different characters but certain things about them remain the same, such as their love of spicy historical novels and their intelligence even if it presents differently. I loved that this book explored the question of reincarnation through the thought experiment because it is a very interesting question and the ways that it relates to romance open up a lot of doors for angst and character exploration. 

Seokga and Kisa’s relationship takes time to develop and Kisa wants to keep them as friends and struggles with being reincarnated. She is very much attracted to Seokga early on like he is to her, but she pushes those feelings away in favor of taking a more academic approach because it’s safer for her. She’s also somewhat scared because she’s never had a relationship and lacks experience in a lot of ways and I appreciated how Seokga responded to these concerns. I also liked Seokga’s journey with what it was he loved about Hani and how it connects to Kisa. 

I would recommend this to fantasy of fantasy mysteries and Romantasy and readers who loved The God and the Gumiho