A review by inkdrunkmoth
The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur 허주은

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

 

If you were to ask me if I really loved this book while reading this book, I would have said ‘there’s some slow moments’ while not realizing I was reading it nonstop and that my kindle was about to die. This happened to me twice. The story wraps you up so completely that you sort of don’t realize you’ve been reading it for hours. And those slow moments were little and far in between exciting moments and the mystery where you think ‘oh it’s pretty obvious’ only to realize just like the two sisters in this story you got it wrong. There were too many red flags pointing you in other directions for other horrible things that happened to this poor community. So let’s get into this. The story follows two sisters, Hwani and Maewol. Hwani returns home after her father goes missing on the island where he’s been reported dead but there is no body. She is determined to find the truth. Slowly she works to earn back the trust of her younger sister Maewol who had been left on the island when Hwani and their father left after the ‘Forest Incident’ where both girls went missing in the forest and were found along with the dead body of another young woman and with no memory of the incident except for the man with the white mask. The two work together to find answers to the forest incident, their father’s disappearance and that of his last case, the disappearance of 13 missing girls. This story is a whirl wind but it’s done really well. I was extremely happy that the story didn’t string in any unneeded romance, instead focusing on family and the two sisters healing their relationship. It kept the mystery center stage and the horrors they experienced. And there were a LOT. So this story does come with a lot of trigger warnings: suicide, abuse, rape, poisoning, starvation, death, torture, kidnapping, and I’m sure a lot more I’m forgetting. But it’s a really great story I really recommend. Because normally with these stories you can guess who’s behind what early on, but like Hwani, I often guessed wrong because we only saw the evidence she saw. There were plenty of guilty parties in this community, but it wasn’t always obvious. I highly recommend this book if you love historical fiction and mysteries and need a good distraction. Get completely dragged into this amazing story, hooking you until the very last page.