A review by ephermeyal
The God and the Gumiho by Sophie Kim

adventurous tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

awww how sweet

The plot twists didn't surprise me at all but it was still satisfying.

The romance? That and their character development felt a bit too fast-paced considering that they only had ~2 weeks. I was not sold enough to them falling in love that fast. I'd say that at best they had a mutual attraction, but sigh--the hate-to-love, sunshine-grump dynamic, only one bed trope, etc--I just eat it up every fucking time so you won't find me complaining here.

Seeing Hani and Seogka gain a heart at the end was so fun lmaoo. And that tension between Hwanin wanting to get close to his brother and get over all that sibling rivalry and envy yet going about it so misguidedly, love seeing that.

But! How the hell do the both of them suck at lying?? Yes, it was meant to be endearing and a part of it was also to get the plot rolling but Hani is almost two thousand years old and a wanted convict how could she have been so careless and impulsive? Meanwhile Seogka is literally this trickster god.. Why do they get so tongue-tied often and why had they been so dumb and inefficient with solving the mystery, smh

Anyway, I wish I can give this a 3.9 instead or something. I feel like 3.75 stars is too low but 4 is also too high given that I'm enjoying the ride instead of feeling gut-wrenching sadness over that ending. I'll round up na lang given that I liked the characters plenty enough and I'll probably read the next book if I still remember it by next year.