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.