Another fun read from Axie Oh. It's an atmospheric fantasy story set in a steampunk world.

The story is told through three POVs, our FMC Ren, her companion Sunho, and her estranged friend Jaeil. I thought the characters were well developed and their narrative voices were distinct. I really enjoyed the side characters as well, Little Uncle and Tag had some of my favorite moments.

This is one of the few times where I would say I think this book should have been longer! It would have been great to have more time with the characters and to let the tension build before resolving the challenges that they face along their journey. The plot was fun, but I think the story would have had more depth if the author let things linger and build up a bit more. That said, I am really looking forward to the sequel.

I listened to the audiobook as well as read the Kindle version. While I enjoyed the narrator's take on bringing Ren to life, I think it would have benefited from having different narrators for each POV.

Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan, and Dreamscape Media for providing digital ARCs of this book.

This was my first book by this author and I will for sure be reading her backlist and any future books that she comes out with.

This was dreamy, strange, and totally immersive. The Floating World drops you into a city that seems half-real, half-memory, where nothing stays fixed for long… not time, not identity, not even gravity. The main character is drifting through grief and memory, and the world reflects that in such a beautiful way.

The writing is lush and lyrical, full of hazy images and quiet revelations. It’s the kind of book that feels like wandering through a dream, sometimes confusing, but always intentional.

Definitely one for fans of The Night Circus or Piranesi. If you like your fantasy slow, moody, and a little slippery, this will totally work for you.

This books premise was delightful. I loved the low fantasy promise with some romance to accompany it. However I felt the writing was a bit clunky and had too many moving pieces for such a short book (even knowing it would have a sequel)

When we meet Ren and learn of her family and life as a troupe performer it was magical and you couldn't help but love her. Same goes for meeting Sunho. Even in his line of profession you liked him. He was strong but level headed and just trying to survive. The insight of seeing how he treated his neighbors told you everything you need to know about him. All in the first 20% of the book was great. I was excited for the prospect of the two main characters meeting and going on their journey.

Then the author introduced a new perspective that you learn is the general's son, Jaeil. While I dont think what was happening under his perspective is unimportant to the story, I just didn't enjoy reading chapters from his perspective. Often times it felt like it took me out of the overall story and it made the time in the book feel like it was stretching on.

After the two main characters meet and the plot moves along it felt like so much happened and yet so little happened. The events felt staccato in that one thing would become a conflict of sorts and in 2 pages or just pne chapter it resolved and the next problem arose. I also dont feel like there was enough development between the 2 characters on their journey for how greatly they felt toward each other at the end. It was like they met, they dont trust each other, they spent a couple days together with minimal back and forth or chemistry, and then by the 3rd day they're spilling their truths to each other. If they had more chemistry and connection more evident through the page I would have been more into it.

I'm not sure I would read the sequel. The ending didnt feel like a massive cliffhanger or just a pleasing ending. All in all it wasn't a bad book but it wasn't my favorite and it was honestly closer to a 2.5 star rating for me than a 3.

4.5 rounded up!
Someone invent a Time Machine like RIGHT NOW cuz I need the next book already 😭

Ya know those books were the characters just seem so fake and you can’t connect with them at all?
Well that’s definitely not this book!

Axie Oh did an *amazing* job creating characters that seemed to come to life as I was reading. The emotions that Ren and Sunho felt for each other actually felt extremely believable and really made the book an easy and comfy read!
While It kinda was more of a friendship than a romance for the most part, (they didn’t even kiss till about 90% of the book 😢) it was waaaaaaay more real and way cuter than many other books I read where the characters relationships are “insta love”.
Ren and Sunho both went through a lot together, healing, and helping and caring for each other as the book progressed. The bond they formed was beautiful and real and I definitely can see it becoming an adorable romance in book 2.

The actual plot of this story and some side points I’ve seen many times over, for example
When the Mc is secretly a princess of a kingdom or that mc has dark magic while one has light magic but this was a totally new twist to it!
It did not feel at all like these tropes (can you even call them tropes)? Were used in a way that you typically see them but instead had a fresh new look that kept me completely hooked from page 1 all the way till the end!

100% gonna recommend this book to my friends and keep bugging them till they read it (sorry not sorry)

P.S. (do you put p.s. in reviews? They’re not really letters but it’s kinda a p.s. moment 🤷‍♀️)
I’m never looking at umbrellas the same way… who knew they could have so many uses? 😜 ☂️

Thank you NetGalley, Axie Oh and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for giving me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

After a horrific night of death and betrayal, Ren is adopted by a traveling group of performers and begins a new life. New name, new role, new family…and they feel like the truest form of herself. So when a demon attacks and shatters her world, she refuses to let go of another life. Meanwhile, across the mountains, Sunto accepts a bounty on a girl hiding from her past. His prize? Information about the brother he lost, since his memory is inexplicably blank.

Thank you so incredibly much to Axie Oh and Macmillan Children’s for an advanced copy of this book! I absolutely raced through it. I found the characters to be wonderful nuanced and their arcs were so perfect. Ren and Sunto were a pair you can’t help but root for (in a chaotic, OMG-JUST-ADMIT-HOW-YOU-FEEL kind of way) and my only complaint is that I read this as an ARC and how have even longer to wait for the next book🥲

Content warnings: violence, mild language, gore, drug and alcohol abuse, emotional abuse, domestic violence

This was my first fantasy by Axie Oh, I still haven't gotten around to the Girt Who Fell Beneath the Sea. However I hear good things about that all the time so I had high hopes for this one. I was very intrigued by the premise of a soldier and a troupe performer. I really like the writing and imagery of the book; I thought the world-building was great and very imaginative, and I definitely felt compelled by all the individual characters. Overall I think this was a great fantasy read and I can't wait for book 2!

Having read and loved Axie Oh's The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, I had extremely high hopes for The Floating World. While I enjoyed the story, the fast pacing, slightly confusing world, and ease with which all problems were solved left me feeling like the book lacked the depth I was looking for.

Everything moves very quickly. There's no time to rest between revelations, as we've already moved on to the next thing, not because of a sense of urgency or the fact that we don't have time to dwell on these things, but simply because we've moved on. It was a very odd feeling, almost as if I was being hurried through this book in order to get to the juicy bits at the end. It left me feeling that nothing happening was truly important, leading to a very detached reading experience. I never felt like I had enough time to ruminate on what happened before I was thrown into the next scene. Consequently, this means that the characters didn't have much time to ruminate either, and that made the detached feeling worse. If the characters aren't reacting to how this is affecting them, why should I? If this had been addressed by the characters at some point, I would have had an easier time of it. Still, as it stands, everything was too fast, from character relationships feeling rushed (I'm looking at you, romance) to plot points and problems being cleared up before I even realized they were a problem.

Despite this, I still enjoyed this story. I found the world to be intriguing and would have liked to learn more about it. The tidbits I got were fascinating, and I think a slightly slower pace would have shed light on the information I was looking for. There's so much meat to this story, and it would have been even better with just a bit more fleshing out.

I enjoyed watching the characters' growth and discovering who they are beyond what others want them to be. This was very much a story of finding your place in the world as you are, and I loved that aspect. Sunho and Ren were great characters, as was their supporting cast. I never got the feeling that the side characters were there to fill in a trope, and that's such a rare thing in YA books these days that it really stood out to me.

While I was slightly disappointed in The Floating World, I still had a good time reading the story and look forward to reading the next book.

I received an advanced copy of The Floating World from NetGalley and the publisher and am leaving this review voluntarily.

This is an Axie Oh-stan account. I live each and every book she’s written. She deftly weaves bits of her Korean heritage, the stories that make our people, with complex, complicated, whole characters that speak to the best (and the worst) of human nature, and journeys that travel each of the roads readers find themselves on at some point in their lives. The Floating World is the first in a duology based on the Celestial Maidens legend in a reimaged Korean Peninsula clashed between steampunk and agrarian societies. It’s a book nerd’s struggle, although it started a bit slow arranging the characters and crucial backstory, it quickly speeds into the plot, engrossing and charming until the very end. But now that the wait for the conclusion and the end of the book coma I find myself in. It can’t come fast enough.

3.5 stars

I had both the ALC and ARC of this book so thank you to NetGalley, Dreamscape Media and Macmillan Children’s Publishing.

I love Axie Oh and was excited to get the advanced copies of this book.

However, I was a little disappointed with the beginning of it. It just started out slow and it felt like not a whole lot happened in the first 30-40% of the book. I know it’s setting things up, but I feel like it could have been done a little quicker.

I felt like Jaeil’s POV chapters weren’t necessary. It doesn’t add to the story & it doesn’t really give us any added insight. Seeing him from just Ren & Sunho’s POVs wouldn’t have changed the story at all. Maybe in book 2 that will change, but I feel like then we could have waited for that book to get his chapters.

Then with the audiobook, I enjoyed the narrator’s voice, but I wish she had changed it a bit for each character. Especially the male ones.

All of that being said, once the story picked up, it didn’t slow down. I loved some of the side characters and while parts of this story are predictable, I will definitely read the second book.

A fun fascinating world! I definitely got the Studio Ghibli vibes! I feel with every book Axie writes the better she gets!! The world building was fun, I enjoyed them traveling in a performing group. Towards the end it did feel like it slowed down for me but then it picked back up again. I can’t wait to read the next book!

*I received an e-arc via Netgalley and the publisher. Thank you for the opportunity to review. All thoughts are my own*

I have been a fan of Axie Oh since her debut Rebel Seoul, and she has not disappointed me yet! The Floating World is her triumphant return to fantasy! I really enjoyed this one, and I love how it's a reimagining of the Korean legend of the Woodcutter and the Celestial Maiden. The world building is amazing with The Floating World and the Underworld, and I am excited to explore that more in the sequel. The writing was whimsical, the romance was sweet, and the cast of characters were unforgettable.

This has been comped to Final Fantasy meets Shadow and Bone. I think if you're a fan of either of those, or fantasy in general, you will find this up your alley.

I definitely recommend and I can't wait for the sequel coming this fall!

5/5
I received an eARC for my honest opinion

Wow just wow. This is book one in a duology, and it tells the story of Ren, who is amazing, she travels the village with her adoptive family, until one day when a demon that looks human attacks the village and her family during a performance. She doesn’t know how she did it, but light came out of her, and it killed the demon and left the human behind. However, her uncle has been hurt during the attack, and she has to find a cure before he dies. On the way to locate the cure she crosses paths with Sunho. He has a few secrets of his own, one of them being that he took a job to capture Ren, and bring her to his boss, but along the way they form a bond that is unbreakable as they hunt down demons, take out mercenaires and soldiers that want to kill them and do this all while Sunho is starting to finally get his memories of the life he used to live.

The world building was done beautifully, I love Axie Oh's, writing is so lyrical that I found myself halfway through the book wishing that it wasn’t so close to the ending. I could picture everything that was happening in the book as though I was watching and not reading it. The characters were interesting and engaging throughout the book. I just loved Ren but it did take a few before I was able to connect with her but I found her character development to be well done, and she became a strong FMC. Sunho… what to say but he is such an amazing character, I found the twists and turns of his backstory coming together to be well done. I found both of their stories to have a lot of depth, very emotional and heartbreaking at times.

I can’t say more because I will start spoiling the book, and I don’t want to. Just know that this book was the best YA fantasy, with romance, folklore and so much more. I can’t wait to read book 2, I have to know the ending.

I want to thank NetGalley and Macmillan Children’s Pub group for the opportunity to review this book.

The Floating World by Axie Oh sets up an intriguing premise of setting between the Under World and a place far East where main character, Ren, lives. Ren has a peaceful life performing with her family to get by until their home is struck by a humanlike demon that causes her to unleash the power she was always told to keep hidden. Unfortunately the pacing of the plot was a bit too slow for my liking and I found the main characters romance to have an instant love feel. However, the ending really picked up and I liked how it set up for the next book. I am still unsure if I will continue onto the sequel but I do believe this book is worth checking out.

Thank you Netgalley for the arc!

I think I got the wrong impression from this book. But I think it was just a me thing not the book itself. There were a lot more creepy elements that I originally thought there would be in this book that I wasn’t ready for.

Definitely some trigger warnings for loss loved one and blood but I think this tells a masterful story with a lot of potential and with a second book this could definitely take off!

Definitely would recommend for sci-fi and dystopian lovers though!

3/5⭐️

In this story, we follow two main characters on different sides of a war: a solder who can't remember his past and a girl running away from hers. Although this story took a while for me to get into, once the pacing picked up, the second half was enjoyable. We follow Sunho, who is tasked with capturing Ren, a storyteller on the run from monsters. The premise is fun and the romance is sweet, and watching the pair fall in love was the easy part.

Something I struggled with while reading was the pacing and waiting for their stories to intertwine. We meet each character separately and learn of their backgrounds over a span of time, but it takes a while for them to meet. It takes even longer for Ren's true purpose to come to light, but that plot twist was a fun addition to the story. This book wasn't overly memorable to me at the time, but perhaps the sequel will be something to look forward to.

Axie Oh delivers yet another beautiful and entrancing story. The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea is one of my most favorite novels and The Floating World has just brought itself onto my favorites list too! Korean Folklore meets Studio Ghibli in this beautiful and romantic tale. I absolutely adored our main characters, Ren and Sunho, and the world building was just absolutely immaculate.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

After reading The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, I knew I had to read The Floating World, and it was just as good as I’d hoped. Axie Oh does such a good job world building. Once I started I couldn’t put this book down. I can’t wait to see where this story goes!

Listen, Axie knows how to do Fantasy well. I loved her book “The girl who fell beneath the sea” and after that I have read most of her books.

This was one of my most anticipated reads for this year and it didn’t disappoint, I need book 2 asap!

I think Axie Oh and I just don't really mix as author reader. I didn't hate this but I also wasn't wowed by this. I felt the same with her other books. I wanted to like it more but it just didn't really do anything spectacular or give me any real connection to the characters. The synopsis had me hooked but I just felt a little lackluster while listening to the audiobook.