I enjoyed this book but I feel like a lot was missing. There’s a bunch of info dumping in the beginning, which made me skip a lot of paragraphs. I didn’t feel strongly for the MC, she doesn’t take any advice from others and instead does whatever she wants. I did however like the magic switching that the MC had throughout the book. It was a good story just didn’t leave the impact I hoped it would, but I am excited to read the sequel!

3.5 stars out of 5

I thought this was a great debut from Lena Jeong with an interesting concept and incredible world building. The first half was not as strong as the second half. It didn't feel as flushed out and I wish there were more detail put into the ceremony. There were parts of the book that felt empty. There was so much going on, but not enough time spent into it.

The characters I loved but also wished I knew even more about them. I liked Kimoon and Hongbin, but I wish I knew a little more about the characters than what was given. There was also an implied romance between the main character and another, but there was not much follow through or resolve in that so I am guessing it is going to play a larger part in a sequel. However, I was not invested in this potential romance and felt that it should have been explored more.

The second half was exciting and I was extremely tuned in. I felt the stakes and thought there was a convincing villain. The characters also started to really come into their own.

Plot: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
Writing: 5/5

Thank you Harper Collins and NetGalley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

Perfect for any oldest daughter or fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender, this Korean mythology inspired YA is a thrilling adventure of a young girl trying to live up to the expectations put on her while also discovering who she is as a person.

Plot:
Mirae is the latest in a long line of queens who are tasked with holding back a monster that even their gods fear. The toll it takes causes each queen to succumb to madness. When Mirae's mother becomes the youngest queen to succumb to the madness, she becomes the youngest princess to take Trial of the Gods. Complications arise, and the monster that has been held back for generations, is now loose. With a magic system based on the four elements, Jeong's world building is breathtaking. This book is not a traditional high fantasy in that it does not have heavy physical/setting descriptions. The descriptions are more focused on the matriarchal society and their spiritualism. Only the women have magic in this book which is revitalizing to see in the fantasy genre.

Characters:
The female characters in this book are very headstrong, loyal, and fiercely independent. There is no FMC who is struggling with her powers and trying to come to grips with her new responsibilities. In a breath of fresh air for the YA genre, Jeong writes characters that are struggling with the weight of expectations. Very akin to the experience of being the oldest daughter, we see characters struggling to keep up the facade of having everything under control.

Writing:
Jeong uses many literary devices to help enhance the experience of the reader. In addition to short chapters and lyrical writing, Jeong's pacing is quick enough to keep you enthralled but slow enough for you to savor every moment. Overall, a very strong writing debut and I can't wait to see what the sequel brings!

3.5 stars.
I kept waiting for one of two things: Mirae's corruption arc or a reason to root for her. Both had some tantalizing prospects, but neither materialized. The characters felt driven by the plot, and not the other way around. A lot is going on, but it's never overly surprising - satisfying events occur without much deviation from the standard YA narrative. The main difference is that there's not a strong romance, just some hints. It's been a while since I've read a Korean-inspired fantasy, so I loved that aspect. Overall, too much plot and not enough character development for a first book.

So, there were parts I really liked about this. In particular, I greatly enjoyed the the relationship between Mirae and her brothers. Their banter and the love they had for one another really shone throughout the entire book. Mirae had some good dialogue with Captain Jia and her two friends as well.

The plot, too, started out really interesting. There are two big problems I have with it, though. First, you're dropped into things far too quickly. The book starts on the day of Mirae's trial/coronation. I think the book would have benefitted from starting a few weeks or months earlier. Because of where it starts there's a lot of info-dumping in the text that read more like an anime recap episode than something part of the narrative. This only gets more convoluted as the plot progresses. Which brings me to my second problem: there's far too much going on in one book. This is going to be a series, but I feel as though the elements in this book should have been separated into two separate books. I don't want to spoil anything for people who decide to read, so I won't get into specifics, but the book feels particularly bloated in the back half and you don't really get any time to rest and absorb the plot or the characters' feelings on the plot.

That being said, I do like Mirae as a character. Even though her character arc is bit uneven due to the sheer amount of plot happening, she's still a character I want to root for. I will read the second book, but I do hope that the plot gets more time to breathe in that one.

I would’ve preferred not to leave a rating since I didn’t complete the book and did not hate it but I don’t have that option.

DNF@ 43%
I cannot finish this book. I wish I could, every ounce of me is dreading DNFing this book but I can’t anymore. There is nothing that can keep my interest, that can keep me coming back to finish it. Every time I pick it up I’m bored, confused, or annoyed. If this wasn’t an arc, I’d most likely would’ve DNF’d it a long while ago but because it is I was trying really hard.
Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book for an honest review.

Mirae is supposed to take over the rule of the queendom after passing her trials. But when the ceremony goes horribly awry, she finds herself thrust into the middle of dangerous situations and just as dangerous intrigue. Amid it all, her brother goes missing and she knows she must do everything she can to find him, even as a dark power is rising. On her journey, Mirae is forced to make decisions and interpret the future to save her family, her queendom, and the world.

This is a difficult book for me to rate. I normally love fantasy, especially non-western ones, so I was very excited to read this. But it was incredibly difficult to finish. What I enjoyed most about this book was the idea of the worldbuilding, which is based on Korean history and myths. But it didn’t feel like it was incorporated as well as it should’ve been. And there were also some aspects of it and some characters that were only incorporated as convenient plot devices. Similarly, it was heavily implied that a romance between Mirae and another character would have a major impact on her and the world, but it was never incorporated. I’m assuming that was just to help set up the sequel, but as it was mentioned so often, it felt like some if it should have gotten a little page time in this book.

Another part of my issue with this book is the characters. Most of them lacked clear characterization and motives, making it difficult to become immersed in their struggles. They were written well enough to not be a major detriment to the book but weren’t written well enough for me to feel engaged with them. Similarly, the plot didn’t feel like anything new or interesting to me. There were minimal surprises and many overused tropes that detracted from my enjoyment. I did like the time switching aspect of the work, but the switches slowed down an already slow plot and were barely present in the work. And despite there being a very firm deadline that the character had to meet, that sense of urgency and threat never came through in the writing.

This read unfortunately felt like it was the same old story in a slightly different skin. My thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins for allowing me to read this book, which will be published 20 June 2023. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I have pretty mixed feelings about this book. I feel like I would have really liked this book, especially since the author does a good job actually portraying the queendom as an actual queendom instead of just being a queendom in name only, if I wasn’t perpetually confused on what was going on. I understand that this is the first in a series so the author can’t clarify everything in one book but I feel like the author could have spent more time clarifying things such as the history of the Netherking and why he was trapped. Was it just because of the rebellion or was there more to it? Especially since the queendom has a bit of a dark history. Also, every time someone promises to tell Mirae the truth something comes up and while I understand not wanting to spoil it too soon and building suspense it kind of becomes annoying after every time, besides the small nugget of information here or there.

Furthermore, I feel like Mirae’s power is becoming essentially useless, besides her future self saving her current/past self, because no one tells her things clearly. Everyone speaks in riddles or hints instead of using the couple of minutes that she has in the future to tell her clearly what is going to happen so she can prevent it or be better prepared for what is to come. If they had warned her about the NetherQueen or about the NetherKing’s true intention then they could have avoided so much trouble. Also, her power does not make sense, if I am understanding everything correctly, because she can only switch places with her future self so how does the legend of her and her ability, along with the bell, come to be if she can not travel to the past because she did not exist in that time period. Because if I remember correctly they said that she is the “unnamed dragon” of the past which was before she was born.

Besides this Mirae is so quick to make promises to everyone in their first meeting including her enemy and not in the “I promise to defeat you” way. She promises the NetherKing to listen to his story and free him along with promising the person who helped kidnap and torture her brother to make him king. In addition, the romance that was supposed to be there (I believe) was non-existent. There was a hint that it may be this one person but then later it was hinted that she may end up with someone else which makes it confusing especially since both the people that was hinted she may end up with there was no build up or improvement in their relationship, especially since one was the one that helped torture her brother, which is kind of off putting to me that she has the possibility of being with someone who hurt her family when the whole point was her saving her brother from that person, and the other betrayed her and was never on her side.

Finally, this is just a personal wish but I wish there was something like a word bank that would explain what the Korean words mean or what the clothing looked like because I do not know much about the Korean culture or language so I was kind of confused unless I looked everything up. Which can take away from the book when you have to pause the reading to look things up.

A big shoutout to Netgalley for allowing me to review And Break The Pretty Kings by Lena Jeong.

And Break The Pretty Kings follows our main character Mirae as she starts her early ascent to the throne. Mirae is from a long line of royals where the Queens are the protectors of the realm and are tasked with keeping their land safe from an ancient evil. But it is prophesied that one queen would either cause the downfall of their country or save them from this evil forever...

On the day of Mirae's coronation a lot of things go wrong and to try and fix all of this, she goes on a journey with a few close allies. This will take Mirae to a lot of places where the future queen should definitely not be found, and along the way she finds out that all she has been taught might not be as black and white as it was presented.

Since this book was marketed to fans of The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, I was curious about the aspects of Korean folklore and mythology that might be used for the story. The book is a good adventure story, however I didn't really connect with the main character a lot. The plot also jumped a bit much for me and I often felt like I missed some piece of information.

I would still recommend this book to anyone looking for an adventure that would remind them of a Korean period drama, much like Scarlet Heart. Overall, I would give this a 3.5/5.

This cover is truly stunning and I really like it. Unfortunately, I didn't feel the same way about the contents of the book. The main things that I took issue with was the writing itself, the world-building, and the characters (mainly the main character).
The writing wasn't terrible--it was pretty simple to read and relatively straight forward, but it wasn't what I was expecting from something that it classified as YA. It read a lot more like middle-grade, which isn't terrible but just wasn't working for me. The story idea and world needed more complex writing to support it.
The world-building was confusing--mainly the magic system. It felt...sort of random and underexplained? I thought the setting itself was pretty well-described and I liked it, but the magic system was just so under baked that it often confused me/made me pause and took me out of the story.
I also felt really distanced from the characters. It didn't feel like we were really there, watching the action and getting first-hand reactions and emotions. The way that the story came across was very distant and so I didn't really connect to, or care about, any of the characters.
What I did like is that this story contains mythology and lore that you don't often see in fantasy, so that was super cool, and I hope to see more of it. I also thought that Jeong's ability to create tone was great, it just got a bit swallowed up by the rest of the issues present in the work.
Overall, I do think this had a fair few issues, but there were some good moments in it, too.

Had been very excited for And Break The Pretty Kings only to end up with disappointment.
The prose is simple and accessible but can read a bit juvenile
The magic system seems like everything thrown together with no real reasom behind it.
The heroine is a Mary Sue.

Thank you to the publisher for the eARC!

I have a lot of thoughts about this one.

Firstly, the heavy info-dumping at the start of the book really put me off and I ended up skipping those paragraphs. Other than that, I enjoyed the story and liked the switching magic the MC has. I don't feel strongly for the MC and think she really needs to start taking advice from others and actually act on them. Overall, I enjoyed this book but feel like it didn't affect me like I hoped it would for some reason. I am excited for the sequel though.

Rating: 3.5 stars

I confess that I DNF’d pretty early. This idea has potential, and I was so excited for a Korean fantasy novel, but I think the editor let the author down. This needed a tighter focus and a lot of craft work. The exposition is so clumsy, thunked down in blunt chunks, and the constant filter words make for bloated and emotionally-distanced reading. An editor really should’ve helped tighten up the prose to make it feel as visceral and magical as the story might’ve been.

What I loved
1.This story is in a Setting and based on a mythology that I don't see frequently in children's and middle grade fantasy.
2 Lena Jeong's style of writing worked beautifully to create a darker and tense .Tone for this story while keeping it approachable by its target audience.
3.character interactions and chemistry helped dialogue and action to flow smoothly together.
What didn't work as well for me
1.The pacing feels a bit off kilter in the first fourth of the book
Who I would recommend this book for
Fans of fantasy with a writing style similar to the girl who fell beneath the sea combined with a tone closer to Gallant will find themselves at home within the pages of And Break the Pretty Kings.

My main takeaways from this book is that the plot, pacing, and narrative are all confusing, and not in a way where upon a second read everything will make sense. I can see what the author was going for, but there were too many characters, twists, and contradictions within contradictions to make this work. The fact we essentially end exactly where we started doesn’t help either and did nothing to help my sour mood/feelings on this book.

The book opens with the monarch's daughter training in preparation for a ceremony where she will be bestowed with powers. Mirae keeps coming back to the prophecy about a girl who will save them all. Everything gets all thrown off kilter when her brother is taken.

There is also a war going on between Mirae's country and another country, but there isn't really any background for that.

The pace of the book was relatively fast-paced, but I also felt like it jumped all over the place. At times, it was hard to figure out what, exactly, was going on. I think there were definitely some good parts, like the lore built into the story, and the descriptions of the world and the food. It make me feel more like I was there.

This review is voluntarily written.

A queen in training endowed with finding and honing her magic so her mom can keep her mind in tact. What could go wrong? I like the matriarchy in the book because that is different than most books and the intricate magic system brings depth the story. The writer intwines prophecies, family bonds, and magic to create a rich story that allows the reader to seamlessly slip into the story and watch as a bystander. I would definitely recommend this book and give it 4 out 5 stars.

I was excited to get a hold of this book because it's rare that we get a fantasy in a historical Korea setting. It was only a matte of time, so i'm glad we're finally getting stories like this. This book was interesting, fast-paced, and fun to read. Mirae is a fantastic main character, she was nuanced and grew a lot. The plot wasn't quite what I was expecting, with the focus being on rescuing her brother, but I was happy with how things played out, and felt like the was a good balance of action and world building that made the setting feel realistic. I'm not sure if a sequel is currently planned, but i'm looking forward to one and seeing more of this world the author has created.

I was incredibly excited for this one, but unfortunately I found it was a little too messy and underdeveloped in key areas. The quest/save-the-prince plot was simple and straightforward enough, but the characters, worldbuilding, prose, and attempted romantic mystery element all fell extremely flat for me.

I appreciated the normalization of queer relationships and the elements of Korean culture and history present in the book. At the same time, though, the Korean-influenced elements were often jarring. Korean words and their English counterparts would be used interchangeably, and I couldn't quite shake the feeling that this was just a weakly-researched historical fiction book with magic and a couple of name changes. (Disclaimer: I am Korean, speak the language, and have studied Korean history, so my reading experience could have been affected by my preexisting knowledge.)

Additionally, the magic felt slapdash and strange. It took me until the 75% mark to get a decent grasp of the various elements introduced here—elemental magic, time magic, gods?, zodiac beads, soul stealing, black water... It was just too much. I still don't really understand Mirae's powers beyond the time shifting ability. I really thought quite a few of these magic systems were unnecessary or could have been condensed in some way. This was probably my largest issue with this book as a whole: too many ideas and not enough context or justification for any of them. The awkward pacing of reveals also made it so that key magical elements were introduced way late into the book, which made things even more of a jumble. Not everything needs to be a dramatic reveal; clarity > intrigue.

I think I might have just come in with high expectations, hence my strong disappointment. I love seeing my culture represented in secondary world fantasy, so I hope this book finds its readers elsewhere, but it just wasn't for me.

This book blew me away. Jeong is one to watch for and this book proves as such. The blend of fantasy and history was interesting two fold.