The Floating World

 

Rating: 4 for high octane fantasy and world building plus a fabulous cover.

My Thoughts:

At the end of this book, the protagonist, Ren asks her friends Yurhee and Tag, "will you join me?" One half of the adventure is over, true, but the other one is still out there. We have not reached the end, but yes I will join you -- in October. GAH! The problem with this kind of fantasy novel is that we start on the precipice and we end on the precipice. In between, though, Ren takes us on a multiple world wild ride to save Little Uncle and run away from the General, his armies and the assassins who are trying to kill her because of her light magic. In between she links up with Sunho, who was also hired to find her. 

She is masked and gives a fake name, so that by the time he realizes that she is Ren, he is already invested in saving her.  It is much more complicated than that, but take my word for it, this is a worthwhile summer read, even if the next book does not come out for four more months.

I want to talk about the ending, and the big "reveal," but I cannot, so if you read this and want more fantasy from Axie Oh, try her novel The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea. The Girl is a modern retelling of the Korean folktale, "The Tale of Shim Cheong." Her other books are more contemporary K-pop, bubblegum romance versus the action packed, world building of this series, but if that is what you want to read, you will like her other books: XOXO and ASAP.

Like the Scarlet Alchemist, the action and storyline were too hard to put down. The chapters mostly alternate between Sunho and Ren, so keeping up is crucial, but so is babysitting for me. Therefore, I both read the book and listened to the audiobook, not simultaneously, but to continue "reading." I'm not sure why some people think the audiobook means that you are not reading. If the narrator is good, it is just a way to continue reading without seeing the words. The images are still in your mind. You are still creating pictures out of text and transacting with that text. That is still reading. 

From the Publisher:

Sunho lives in the Under World, a land of perpetual darkness. An ex-soldier, he can remember little of his life from before two years ago, when he woke up alone with only his name and his sword. Now he does odd-jobs to scrape by, until he comes across the score of a lifetime—a chest of coins for any mercenary who can hunt down a girl who wields silver light.

Meanwhile, far to the east, Ren is a cheerful and spirited acrobat traveling with her adoptive family and performing at villages. But everything changes during one of their festival performances when the village is attacked by a horrific humanlike demon. In a moment of fear and rage, Ren releases a blast of silver light—a power she has kept hidden since childhood—and kills the monster. But her efforts are not in time to prevent her adoptive family from suffering a devastating loss, or to save her beloved uncle from being grievously wounded.

Determined to save him from succumbing to the poisoned wound, Ren sets off over the mountains, where the creature came from—and from where Ren herself fled ten years ago. Her path sets her on a collision course with Sunho, but he doesn't realize she's the girl that he—and a hundred other swords-for-hire—is looking for. As the two grow closer through their travels, they come to realize that their pasts—and destinies—are far more entwined than either of them could have imagined...

Publication Information:

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends (April 29, 2025)
Author: Axie Oh
Print length: 358 pages
Narrator: Eden Jun (Dreamscape Media)