Gilded

Asian fantasy YA is always on my wishlist and it’s darn near on the level of “NEEEEEEED” if the main character in said Asian fantasy YA is actually Asian and not a white boy or girl dumped into Japan, Korea, India, etc. and then stuff starts happening. Gilded quenched my thirst for a little while and I’ll be coming back for the sequel because I really do like where it’s going, but the novel is nowhere near as strong as it should be.Jae Hwa as a character is great, especially since the fact she’s Korean is always kept in mind. It’s easy to accidentally make a story all about the character’s racial-ethnic identity or mention it but then entirely disregard how not being white affects them (and there is almost always an effect on someone’s life if they’re not white and can’t pass), but Gilded never indulges in either. Though it spells trouble for the romance, the way her love interest Marc makes her insecure in her identity as a Korean girl by being better at being Korean than her felt very natural despite the major discomfort of the scene. More on that bit later. Anyway, it’s all well and good until she starts describing herself with kimchi and fried squid, at which point I said, “No girl nooooooooo.” One should not describe a person’s actions and thought processes in terms of their culture’s foods. That’s kinda bad.At the same time, Jae Hwa really irritated me because she’s a mean girl. She wants to come off as a girl like the readers and someone thrown into this world where the gods are real and one is obsessed with stealing her soul (gotta love the antagonists obsessed with the heroine thing; y’all know this is my trope), but when a girl named Min shows interest in Marc, Jae Hwa calls her Min of the Long Legs or simply Long Legs. She does not need to make Min the butt of half her jokes and Min’s duty to make Jae Hwa jealous/show how Marc is only into Jae Hwa is unnecessary. Were she not here or were Jae Hwa not hating on her, this would be a better book.Though the setting isn’t very well-established and the story feels like it could be happening in the United States, the Korean mythology is a major plus of this story. I’m a mythology geek as it is and all the legends as Farley related them caught my interest. Had I the time, I would look up all the Korean myths and binge binge biiiiiiiinge on them. There are never enough mythic tales of gods’ follies and how humans get mixed up with them to satisfy me! Catching my interest with all these and making me want more is probably what Gilded did best; were it not for life getting in my way, I would have read this in two or three days because I wanted to know how the rest of the myth was going to unfold.I’m on board with Jae Hwa and Marc’s romance because they’re pretty adorable together, but is it bad I wish this white boy wasn’t white? There is a dire shortage of Korean or otherwise Asian boys in this novel and I like my boys as diverse as my girls. Plus the way he out-Koreans Jae Hwa and makes her uncomfortable in her own skin makes me worry about the future of their relationship. When he’s speaking fluent Korean with her grandfather and her inability to speak/understand it makes her feel inadequate, there’s a serious problem there that needs to be addressed. One of my hopes for the sequel is that this issue of race is addressed because ignoring something like this is wrong.On the plotting side, the plot is pretty much accomplished by people throwing the Idiot Ball around at different intervals. People don’t tell Jae Hwa stuff because they think it will keep her safe and they don’t think she needs to know it EVEN THOUGH IT DIRECTLY INVOLVES HER AND SHE NEEDS TO KNOW IT TO KEEP HERSELF SAFE, so she goes out and does stupid things she would know better than to do if someone told her what she needed to know for once. This cycle of stupidity reads like an attempt to drag the story out and not the natural decisions/resulting consequences of these characters.Despite all the flaws of Gilded, I can say I’m definitely looking forward to reading its sequel Silvern, due out later this year. I’ve got high hopes for it and a little wary of the sequel’s ability to grant my wishes based on how Gilded went, but I’m willing to give it a shot. If you want to try out some Asian fantasy set in Korea, you might want to give this a good look.

A rich tale with dragons, battling immortals and a fiery female protagonist. Bonus points for being set in Korea and beautifully incorporating Korean history. I hate writing reviews. I love K-Drama, especially the mythical tales. So basically Koreans in book form. Friendship, well written action scenes, love and celestial travel. Looking forward to Jae Hwa's further adventures. As in I've already purchased the next two books in the trilogy.

Generally, I really like young adult fiction. It's easy to read and stuff happens at a much faster pace than in most "adult" books I've picked up. Gilded falls into these parameters. Stuff starts happening almost right away, which means we aren't left looking for the plot for 60% of the the book. That's a good thing. What's also good is that...wait for it...Gilded is different! Oh my gosh. That was awesome to find out. Let me tell you why.Overall, it's the story of a teenage girl with a destiny determined by a curse that's been haunting her family for generations. That sounds pretty typical, and it is, but Farley managed to do a great job with it because a) she infused the entire story with Korean folklore, which is something I haven't really seen done all that much, and b) the protagonist herself is an American-Korean. Both her parents were from Korea, from what I gathered, so she has a lot of connection to Korea even though she's lived most of her life in Los Angeles. The story, by the way, takes place in Seoul, where Jae and her father have recently moved for her father's job; it's this move, and Jae's presence in Korea, which activates the curse. It's pretty cool having a non-white protagonist, though Jae is pretty "American" in most senses. I can only list a handful of other books that have "ethnic" protagonists, so this was a nice addition.I thought this was fairly well done. The characters are believable, for the most part. The story can be a bit melodramatic at parts, but then again, it's also about teenagers, who are pretty melodramatic as a rule, so I can let that go. Jae did frustrate me at times by not picking up on things as quickly as I thought she should, especially toward the end when she should have had enough experience to recognize what was going on around her. I liked Marc, the love interest, though his role wasn't what I thought it would be. I thought he was going to be like the human form of Haechi or something, but he wasn't. That would have been cool, but I'm not exactly an expert in Korean mythology, so I'm not sure if it would have worked. The main character I had an issue with was Jae's father. He thinks all of the stuff that's going on with Jae isn't real, and I feel like something had to give here. Either something should have happened much earlier in the novel to convince him of the reality of Jae's situation (and was he even convinced at the end? I'm not sure) or he probably should have had his daughter committed to a mental institution. Which might have been interesting, come to think of it.The ending of this did feel a bit rushed. A ton of stuff happened that wasn't exactly tied in earlier in the story, making it seem a bit disjointed. I think some of this could have been cut for the sake of streamlining the novel, and I think that it probably wasn't because Farley wanted to show how much Jae could go through. It kind of worked, kind of not; I mean, yes, it made Jae seem stronger, but like I said, it also came off as disjointed and hurried. Some of these later plot points (a fox spirit, the weird orb thing) could have been cut or possibly reserved as points for future books, because Gilded is very obviously the start of a series. It's not a cliffhanger, though, so you can read it without fearing for your sanity at the end. Overall, this was an enjoyable, quick read suitable for pretty much any audience.

I'm not in the target demographic for this book (I'm male and 56), but I often enjoy what's nowadays described as Young Adult genre. This one was too juvenile for my tastes I'm afraid, and I couldn't get through it at all, despite several attempts. The frustration was that I sensed there was an interesting tale here, but I couldn't get past the main protagonist's crush on the class cool kid or her incredibly stupid acceptance of her Father's insistence that she stay in what was obviously a dangerous situation....stretched my credibility and patience a wee bit too thin.....sorry but this one missed the mark for me.

This story of ancient and modern Korea linked through the Spirit World is one of great imagination and not a little humour. The end turns out to not be the end but perhaps a Start to a new story where the spirit world and our world and more intrinsically linked.Excellent prose and great imagination must have combined to produce this off the wall story - very good.

Fantastic series. Enjoying it a lot. I would strongly recommend this for 14plus girls. It's full of excitement but in the center are a group of teenagers who really just want a normal life.

Great heroine! Gilded is packed with action and just enough history to make it an absolute belter of a YA novel!

I have enjoyed this book from start to finish cannot wait for the next book which I have pre-ordered brilliant