I’m grateful to be able to read this book about a world of fantasy, which is easy to get lost in. Each character had great depth and made me want to learn about each one even more.. I know this will be an ongoing series so I do not want to give out any spoilers, but I believe the main character will undergo changes in the future. Thanks NetGalley for allowing me to read this book.!

This book fell flat for me. I was intrigued by the premise, the gorgeous cover, and the promise of Korean-inspired folklore, but ultimately disappointed by lackluster characters and a surface level exploration of the world.

Ren being a storyteller was an interesting way to give us insight into the world, and a great connection between myth and reality. I found the stories fun and they also added interesting questions and layers to be picked at later in the book. Ren was a fun, unique, strong, and likable protagonist. I admired her dedication to her Uncle and her bravery going out into a world she knows little about. Watching her use her charisma to get out of situations were my favorite parts of the book. And, whole predictable, her character arc are exciting to piece together.

The world had a lot of potential but missed the mark in that I felt like we did not get to explore an area for very long. Ren and Sunho's adventure moves extremely quickly and characters were introduced and then not given much payoff. Many of them blended together and I felt like they mostly served to move the plot along.

Sunho's mysterious backstory was intriguing and I liked getting bits of it as the story progressed and he regained bits of memory. However, regaining his memories seemed to have little sustained impact on him and I was bummed out that the fantasy element was grounded in military experimentation. Even though I spent a book with him, I barely feel like I know much of his motivation beyond finding his brother, and even that did not seem to drive him much during the story. After he met Ren, he kind of threw everything out the window and followed her around instead. Their relationship developed too quickly and I did not think they had much chemistry. Even though they spent most of the book together, I found their conversations dry and boring.

Overall, this book was not for me. The writing was beautiful and the world building had so much potential. The characters and overall plot elements just turned me off from the intriguing premise.

The book starts great. I appreciated the uniqueness of the story and it's inspiration from Korean folklore. But I felt like the story falls flat. The plot doesn't carry the urgency, and most of the story happens because it's needs to happen.

I loved The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, so I’m disappointed that The Floating World didn’t do it for me!

The world that Oh has created is compelling, with social classes divided in a physical hierarchy: the nobles live on the Floating World, while the lower class lives in the darkness of the Under World, blocked from the sun by those above them. The characters that occupy this world are clearly products of their cultural and physical context, and I appreciated that Ren and Sunho’s journey allows the reader to explore the varying ways that people live in these different places.

That said, The Floating World never quite cohered for me, in part because it didn’t seem to know what kind of book it wanted to be. Ren’s high stakes effort to find a cure for her ailing uncle provides plenty of drama, but there is rarely an effort to build suspense or linger in scenes of violence or betrayal. Surprising things happen, but they don’t seem to occupy the characters for long. Instead, the central romance is the primary focus, with Ren and Sunho both spending a fair amount of time thinking about each other. The “will they or won’t they?” feeling that romance novels traditionally seek to create is missing, though; the shifting narration confirms that their attraction develops mutually and without much conflict. The result is a lack of tension that deprives the story of energy. In other words, a lot happens, but the pacing and emphasis make for a less-than-thrilling reading experience.