The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea tells the story of Mina the youngest and only daughter of the Song family, who is willing to defy gods and mortals alike for the love of her family.
Mina is a loving and good sister, so when the woman her brother loves is meant to be sacrificed to the God of the Sea, Mina throws herself into the sea in her stead. What Mina thought the Sea God and the spirit world would be from her grandmothers stories, is enchanting and beautiful, the world she arrives in is anything but. Gods bid for power and quietly war against each other as the Sea God sleeps. Mina feels she must wake the Sea God and save the people of the spirit world, but can she do that without losing her heart to another first?
The squeal of joy that came out of me when I received this Arc is impossible to replicate. Thank you to Netgalley, Feiwell and Friends, and Axie Oh for the advanced copy of this book.
One of my favorite things over the last few years is all of the retellings of myths, legends, and folklore across the world. As a child I loved reading fairytales and stories about Gods who chose mortals over other Gods. I love the idea and the magic in passing down stories for generations. I often wondered when reading Greek Mythology, how many of those stories lost their bulk through centuries of telephone.
Mina lives her life in stories that have been told to her and passed down to her through generations. The stories she hears and learns from are mainly those from her grandmother and when she is in the spirit world, you can tell that the knowledge passed on to her with love, is the same that she uses to save those that she loves. Mina is probably one of the strongest female characters that I have had the pleasure to read about in a long time. In times of darkness and trial, she allowed herself only a moment of fear before she turned and faced head on whatever was coming her way. She is strong, witty, and uncomplicated. She has only ever known love and wishes to share that same feeling with those she cares for, and even those that scare her.
I absolutely loved this book. I greatly appreciate that Axie Oh is sharing a part of her culture in the retelling of Shim Cheong. She writes this tale in such a beautiful way that you can tell every word is filled with a tenderness for the characters, and the original folk lore itself. I highly recommend this book to everyone and have already pre-ordered my own copy for my shelf.