The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea | ARC Review

Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton and Netgalley for the review copy in exchange for an honest review. This does not change my opinion in anyway.

Deadly storms have ravaged Mina’s homeland for generations. Floods sweep away entire villages, while bloody wars are waged over the few remaining resources. Her people believe the Sea God, once their protector, now curses them with death and despair. In an attempt to appease him, each year a beautiful maiden is thrown into the sea to serve as the Sea God’s bride, in the hopes that one day the “true bride” will be chosen and end the suffering.

Many believe that Shim Cheong, the most beautiful girl in the village—and the beloved of Mina’s older brother Joon—may be the legendary true bride. But on the night Cheong is to be sacrificed, Joon follows Cheong out to sea, even knowing that to interfere is a death sentence. To save her brother, Mina throws herself into the water in Cheong’s stead.

Swept away to the Spirit Realm, a magical city of lesser gods and mythical beasts, Mina seeks out the Sea God, only to find him caught in an enchanted sleep. With the help of a mysterious young man named Shin—as well as a motley crew of demons, gods and spirits—Mina sets out to wake the Sea God and bring an end to the killer storms once and for all.

But she doesn’t have much time: A human cannot live long in the land of the spirits. And there are those who would do anything to keep the Sea God from waking…

One release I was absolutely excited for was The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea. I’ve had my eye on reading something by the hand of Axie Oh for a while and after reading this I am certainly interested in reading other things by her hand.

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea is a mythological and fairy tale type story where the gods and goddesses are important and story telling even more so. Axie Oh manages to weave that feel throughout the story well. Sometimes there were moments that felt so fleeting in its beauty, others that were hard to grasp as Gods and Goddesses often are.

I think that for me the story didn’t live up to its maximum potential. I found the ‘twist’ easy to guess. I knew it right from the start where we met them that it was going to turn out that way and I don’t understand how nobody else caught it. And I thought the ending to this story would have benefitted from a more open ending instead of the ending we got.

Regardless I still think this is a good story to read, especially if you love fairy tale type stories.

8 thoughts on “The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea | ARC Review”

I’m really looking forward to this one! I haven’t read it yet, but from what I’ve seen it feels like a young YA, so I’m not surprised that the twist is easy to guess.

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Annemieke says:

1 March 2022 at 11:12

Hmm I’m not sure if I would place in the young ya section. Not were I would put it right away in any case.

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1. Nicole @ BookWyrmKnits says:
  
  1 March 2022 at 17:06
  
  Huh, that’s interesting. I am often intrigued by books where it’s hard to place their intended audience age.
  
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Great review! I absolutely love the look of the cover. I love anything to do with water mythology too so, even if the ending is easy to guess, I’m sure I’ll like it. I’ll certainly be going in with more tempered expectations, though.

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