The Girl King by Mimi Yu | Book Review and Blog Tour
The Girl King by Mimi Yu | Blog Tour
Hello friends, today I’m opening up the blog tour for the Girl King by Mimi Yu! When I first heard of The Girl King I was at YALC and they were doing a competition to win a copy of the book. I’m unashamed to say I entered that competition more times than I can count but still didn’t win, so when I got the opportunity to be on the Blog Tour I jumped at it!
I hope you enjoy this post, I’ll do a little bit about the author, Mimi Yu, then get into the book. There will also be a bit of a content warning at the end. As always this review will be spoiler free.
Mimi Yu was born and raised in rural upstate New York. Her hometown is the site of both the Women’s Rights Convention (1848) and the largest active landfill in New York State (ongoing).
She currently resides in the SF Bay Area of California, and soon she will live near Chicago. She has never been a midwesterner before, but she does enjoy a good casserole.
Besides books, Mimi likes quilting, gardening, drawing, picking up heavy weights, and pop music. She has four planets in Aquarius. She knows a little bit about a lot of animals, and far too much about cats.
The Girl King by Mimi Yu Published by Bloomsbury YA on January 8th 2019
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy
Pages: 432
Goodreads
Two sisters become unwitting rivals in a war to claim the title of Emperor in this sweeping tale of ambition, sacrifice and betrayal for readers of Sabaa Tahir and Alwyn Hamilton.
All hail the Girl King.
Sisters Lu and Min have always understood their places as princesses of the Empire. Lu knows she is destined to become the dynasty's first female ruler, while Min is resigned to a life in her shadow. Then their father declares their male cousin Set the heir instead—a betrayal that sends the sisters down two very different paths.
Determined to reclaim her birthright, Lu goes on the run. She needs an ally—and an army—if she is to succeed. Her quest leads her to Nokhai, the last surviving wolf shapeshifter. Nok wants to keep his identity secret, but finds himself forced into an uneasy alliance with the girl whose family killed everyone he ever loved…
Alone in the volatile court, Min's hidden power awakens—a forbidden, deadly magic that could secure Set's reign…or allow Min to claim the throne herself. But there can only be one Emperor, and the sisters' greatest enemy could turn out to be each other.
Overall I really enjoyed The Girl King. The story was captivating and there was magic? YES. Also I love me some girl POWER. Oh and a wolf, I LOVE WOLVES. They are like my favourite animal, other than dogs because my dog is the best, but wolves came first okay. The Girl King was darker than I thought it would be, but I enjoyed that element. It explores the classic trope of good people being corrupted by power, and does it well. I can’t comment on the validity of the representation, however, though I believe it to be okay?
The Girl King adds some new twists to classic tropes, which I really enjoyed. We all love the whole, girl inheriting the crown in a place ruled by men previously, Mimi adds more layers to this. I really can’t wait to see where this story will go!
The story is told from the POV of three main characters: Lu, Min and Nok. This keeps it interesting as we learn their motivations for their actions, sometimes explaining them, other times just making it more confusing that they were behaving that way. People are rarely simple, and The Girl King’s characters are no example. They learn some difficult things and it’s fascinating how they react.
The pacing is somewhat steady, with the end building to a crescendo with the main ‘event’ happening. I found the last few hundred pages to be a bit slower than the rest of the book, as there was a lot of explanations on the world building and the lore happening here. There’s a LOT of world building, and honestly it took me a while to get to grips with some of it. The magic system was intricate and complex, adding to the layers in this novel. I look forward to finding more out about this world and the magic in the next instalment.
There’s a lot of character development in The Girl King, and not always for the best. All the characters go through a lot of changes, some of them developing sides of themselves they didn’t know existed.
There are a few side characters we see briefly that just aren’t in it enough for me. They started out well developed and I wanted more from them, but they seem to disappear a bit. I’m hoping they’re more present in the next one.
Lu is never really a bad person, just someone who is driven by what she wants. This forwards her movements throughout the story. She kind of develops towards the end and ALMOST stops putting herself and her dreams first… almost. I think she needs more of a journey in the next novel to become the best she can be.
Min is interesting. She is essentially a child with a lot of pressure and power on her head. Her motivations are childish and leading her astray, I just hope that in the next one she develops more into her own person, as she is heavily influenced by others.
Nok… Nok what are you doing? He doesn’t know. No one knows. He’s a bit of an enigma at times, what does he want? I liked that he could shift into a wolf, WOLVES RULE OKAY. He also makes an interesting love interest, but for who?
Content Warning: violence, sexual assault, racial slurs against fictional races
Book Depository
Amazon
Goodreads
I hope you enjoyed this review! Have you read The Girl King, what did you think?
Make sure you check out the rest of the tour!
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14 Comments
Great review!
Thank you!
The story sounds intriguing. I like stories where sisters have some sort of rivalry, they are usually quite entertaining and reminds me of my sisters and I. I am going to add it to my never ending reading list. Great review thanks for sharing!
Haha do you and your sisters also have rivalry?
Thank you!
I haven’t heard of this book at all. But it’s sounds so exciting …just from your reaction in the beginning. I will make sure to take a look at the book! Great review! 💜
Thank you lovely!
Ahh YES I very very much want to read this one *flails* I think I have it preordered (I should check lmao) and I just love books where girls take what’s due them. Also more diverse fantasy is so sorely needed, so this is pretty high on my can’t-wait-to-read-list!
Haha I do that all the time, preorder books and just completely forget, I’ve had a couple editions of one book arrive before when I’ve done this. I hope you enjoy it! It’s had some criticisms that I don’t agree with, some I do, but all round it’s a good book so I hope people read it and enjoy. It’s quite a dark book but if you go in knowing that then I think you’ll like it!
This sounds so interesting, I might have to add it to my wishlist for 2019!
Very interesting. I just got approved for this on netgalley and your review has made me even more excited to start it
I’ve seen this one around and thought it looked interesting! Glad to hear it was 🙂 Will definitely give it a go!
Yay I’m glad!!
Great review 🙂
I love that you’ve included content warnings.
Cora | http://teapartyprincess.co.uk/
This is certainly different than my usual comfort-zone reading, but your review made it sound intriguing and something I might like to “try on” just for the fun of it. Thank you.