A review by tqlikesbooks
Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee

adventurous hopeful lighthearted sad fast-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

 
“Seems to me, Min, you make your own luck.”


Dragon Pearl follows thirteen year old min, a gumiho (fox spirit) who wants to join the Space Forces like her older brother Jun. When her family is visited by a man who claims Jun has deserted the forces to track down a powerful item called the dragon pearl, Min is convinced that her brother is innocent and sets out to rescue Jun and clear his name.

This was a great middle-grade adventure that combines coming of age, sci-fi and Korean folklore. I adored learning about all sorts of magical beings and how they operated in this sci-fi world, including: goblin space cadets; terraforming dragon magic; and a wily fox spirt that owns a gambling parlour on a space port. Min is an excellent protagonist who uses her charm and shapeshifting ability in many clever ways in order to find her brother (but inadvertently leaves a trail of destruction in her wake). There is some great representation of non-binary people throughout the worlds in which the story takes place, which I found pretty neat for a children's book!

Overall it's a fun and fast paced story, but something about it fell a little flat for me— the writing was just a little overly simplistic for my tastes. I do love that this kind of children's story exists and I would have adored this as a youngster.

I highly recommend this book for fans of middle-grade fiction. I'm definitely interested enough to check out more of Yoon Ha Lee's adult fiction now.
 
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