Forest of Stolen Girls - Jane Hur

 

Edgar Award Winner 

I had trouble getting through this one. I picked it based on the title and cover (something, something, don't judge a book by it's cover), hoping that I would enjoy it. But over the years, I have determined that I'm not a big fan of mystery novels. I think had a hard time getting into the novel because of the historical factors. The two protagonists who are sisters looking for their father are constantly hitting road blocks due to them being women in 1426 Korea, but we are early on established that the older sister is able to disguise herself as a man. So it becomes frustrating to me that there are several times where they are met with a problem because they are women. And I'm just sitting here reading and thinking, "Why don't you just disguise yourself? It worked last time!" The murder mystery aspect of the book was more interesting than the historical one, but in the end I just couldn't find myself enjoying this book. 

I think whether or not teens would enjoy this book is based entirely off whether or not you can connect with the plight of the main characters. Most of the time, I struggled to relate to Hwani despite her goal of finding her missing father is an easy one to relate to. But, one of the more popular genres in my school's library is the mystery section. There's a lot of other mystery series that are super popular, like One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus, and I think this novel would fit well into that group. I also think anyone who is big into true crime mysteries would love this book. The historical aspect of this novel reminds me a lot of Cold Case podcasts and how they will delve into historical murders that went unsolved. 

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