emleemay 's review for:

The Girl King by Mimi Yu

2.0

---

"I am going to win back my throne."

See, here's the thing. I've read this book before. Many times. Hundreds of times, it feels like. [b: The Girl King|35105833|The Girl King (The Girl King, #1)|Mimi Yu|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1527081500s/35105833.jpg|56413055] sounded good, but it does absolutely nothing that hasn't already been done by countless YA Fantasy books.

What we have here is another young woman looking to reclaim her throne. She journeys around with standard Hot Dude™ and hopes to recruit the Yunians, a group of people with magic, to her cause. It's not a short journey, either. I was ready to forgive the book for being so long because I thought it was a standalone, but it turns out we can expect at least one sequel.

» The Characters
The book is written in third person, which probably doesn't help us warm to the characters. This was a real problem for me. I couldn't care about anyone.

The three third-person perspectives are that of Lu, badass warrior and heir to the throne, her sister Min, younger and weaker and - for the most part - used as a pawn by everyone in the book, and Nok, a slipskin who can sometimes become a wolf. Nok feels interchangeable with most YA fantasy love interests; Lu feels interchangeable with most YA fantasy badass heroines. Only Min remotely stood out, though perhaps for the wrong reasons. Her naivete and self-pity quickly grew tiring.

They never really liked me, she thought, not for the first time, but still, it stung. No one does.

» The Plot Journey
What is with these journeys? Long, dull treks in which the heroine and potential lover must spend so much time together-- oh my, what could happen?

Thankfully, we returned to the palace for Min's perspective in between Lu's journeying or else I might have died of boredom.

» The Twists/Reveals
Obviously, I'm not going to give anything away, but there is NOTHING that comes as a surprise in this book. The earlier twist can be guessed in the first couple of chapters, and come on, did anyone reading this really believe for a second that

Spoiler

Nok was gone for good

?

I really expected something more from [b: The Girl King|35105833|The Girl King (The Girl King, #1)|Mimi Yu|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1527081500s/35105833.jpg|56413055]. Unfortunately, it is almost indistinguishable from other YA fantasy books. Give it a few weeks and this will have blended into all the rest in my mind. If you are on the lookout for fantasy inspired by East Asia, I recommend [b: The Poppy War|35068705|The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)|R.F. Kuang|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1515691735s/35068705.jpg|56364137], [b: Girls of Paper and Fire|34433755|Girls of Paper and Fire (Girls of Paper and Fire, #1)|Natasha Ngan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1518109125s/34433755.jpg|55540701] or [b: Forest of a Thousand Lanterns|33958230|Forest of a Thousand Lanterns (Rise of the Empress, #1)|Julie C. Dao|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1496338822s/33958230.jpg|53186285] instead.

CW: Attempted rape; murder; addiction.

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Youtube