book of the week

nefarious

SUMMARY

The mad queen's mysterious disappearance sparks riots across the kingdom, making the Joseon dynasty on the brink of fall. But Jung-Hee, the assassin of Hanseong, still cares nothing but money after all. 

RECOMMENDED

I don't know why this book only has 903 views.

That was my first thought when I opened NEFARIOUS, which is written by antigonick. My second thought was Aw man, I can't read Korean. Not because the book is written in Korean! If it was, then I don't know why I'm still writing this book recommendation. Rather, the chapter titles are in Korean, which I love. Granted, I had to do a bit of copy/paste to understand said chapter titles since I'm quite curious, but I think the cultural touch is wonderful and helps a lot with the setting (you guessed it— Korea! Where else?).

I'm not even going to go too much into the main character, Jung-Hee, who you already know is badass. He's an assassin, and that's about all I need to say before you all go clamoring to read about him.

But it's not just the badass guy or the Korean setting that makes me so intrigued with this story. I've read dozens upon dozens of historical fiction books, and I hate to say it, but those dozens upon dozens of historical fiction books could all be easily sorted into two categories: 1) the United States or 2) Europe. The Book Thief, Fever 1793, Code Name Verity, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, need I go on? It's so refreshing and exciting to finally read about somewhere new, somewhere I don't know much about, and that's what Nefarious did.

Nefarious is set in the Joseon Dynasty, which, for those of you that don't know, happens to be a real dynasty that lasted from 1392 to 1897! I just feel slightly ashamed that I had to Google it since I never really heard of it before. Blaming that on the lack of Korean historical fiction books, but I digress.

antigonick weaves in plenty of Korean culture from hanbok and dangui to beoseon and gonryongpo, and that's definitely part of what makes this book so unique. I could go on forever about how much I learned about Korean culture in just fifteen minutes of reading, but I think I'll let you go open up antigonick's book and find out for yourself.

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written by SeaSpree
chosen by xohrats