AND THE RIVER DRAGS HER DOWN Book Review

And The River Drags Her Down¹ by Jihyun Yun, eBook, 390 pages

Synopsis from GoodReads: She has always known the 'Never resurrect anything larger than the palm of her hand.' But that was before her sister died...

When her older sister is found mysteriously drowned in the river that cuts through their small coastal town, Soojin Han disregards every rule and uses her ancestral magic to bring Mirae back from the dead. At first, the sisters are overjoyed, reveling in late-night escapades and the miracle of being together again, but Mirae grows tired of hiding from the world. She becomes restless and hungry...

Driven by an insatiable desire to finish what she started in life, to unravel the truth that crushed her family so many years ago, Mirae is out for revenge. When their town is engulfed by increasingly destructive rain and a series of harrowing, unusual deaths, Soojin is forced to reckon with the fact that perhaps the sister she brought back isn’t the one she knew.

BOOK REVIEW: Wow. That's the first word that comes to mind when I think of this story. Wow. This is the author's debut novel and she did amazing! This story walks you through loss, grief, ancestral magic, resurrection, and revenge (to name a few). You felt all the feelings and then some. I felt the sorrow and the guilt and the longing and loneliness. I laughed and cringed and shed a few tears. I love when a book can do this to me! I feel so much more connected to the author. The author has a book of poetry out that I am definitely going to be on the lookout for.

In a story like this I don't know that I have a favorite part. That seems wrong when talking about a girl who has lost her mother and her sister and her dad works far away and is only available on weekends. When Soojin started calling her sister unnie, it just broke my heart. I did find it sweet, at first, that an outsider found out about their magic when all the girls were about the same age. By girls I mean Soojin, Mirae, and their mother Sun. It's a connection that the characters didn't know that they had, except one.

This is such a 5 star book, it's ridiculous! The author has done an amazing job describing the characters, their feelings, their surroundings, etc while also not honing in on certain things that could easily cross this over into something way darker. I mean we already have the darkness with Soojin bringing Mirae back but the twists and turns that could have been taken that we tend to see in thrillers and paranormal mysteries these days are eluded to instead of described in detail. This book is out today. Order from my link above to support an Indie bookstore near you or you can find all formats available on Amazon or wherever you get your books.

5/5 Stars

2025 Reading Challenge: 59/50 complete

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