Title: The Girl King
Author: Mimi Yu
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
Publication date: January 8, 2019
Princess Lu is ready to be named her father’s heir and become the first woman to rule their empire with her sister, Min, hiding in the shadows. But when their father names their cousin, Set, as the heir instead, a series of events are put into place that puts their empire into mortal peril. Lu abandons the palace in order to take her rightful place as heir, making an unlikely alliance with Nok, a survivor from the labor camps up north. Little do any of them know that they have set events into motion that will wake long sleeping magic–leaving none of them the same.
Thanks to Net Galley and Bloomsbury YA for giving me an early copy of this book to read and review! I’d been seeing this book everywhere on Twitter it felt like, so I’m glad I got to nab a copy before it was released. Fantasy has been the genre where more diversity is slowly being included, so it’s refreshing to have an Asian protagonist that can fit into the likes of characters like Katniss or Aelin.
We’ll start with my favorite aspect of this book: the magic. I though the system that Yu created was unique, giving this book an edge when put alongside other YA fantasy books. Additionally, I thoroughly enjoyed the sort of sibling rivalry that’s included in the book; we don’t see many YA fantasy books where sisters are pitted against each other, and just having a strong female power on both sides of the narrative adds another element to the book that makes it that much more enjoyable.
We were also given a large variety of points of view that also gave the reader a larger picture of the war that was quickly escalating. And there was a lot going on, between Lu, Min, Nok, and the various wrongs that the empire had committed. The multiple points of view helped some in keeping these events straight, but I do think a map would have made a huge world of difference (at least for me). I couldn’t keep straight where everyone was going and who was moving to fight where. Maybe there will be one in the final version?
Despite the magical and mystical elements, the world building here fell a bit flat to me, as did some of the character development. While I enjoyed the different types of magic included here, I didn’t feel like I got a good sense of the world as a whole. I wanted more detail, more information about the lives that Lu and Min lead, more about Nok’s background. I feel that this would have made the book more immersive–and easier to follow. By the end, I was inundated with characters and places that it was difficult for me to follow what was going on. Instead of including so much in the first book, save some of the events and people for later books; this would allow the first book to breath, as well as creating a more immersive world building experience.
Overall, this is an enjoyable read that I think many YA fantasy fans will enjoy. Despite falling into similar tropes of the genre, Mimi Yu is still able to create a compelling narrative that I think will bring fans back for book 2 (because there’s obviously going to be a book 2).
3.5/5 stars