Tag: found family

Review: The Demon and the Light by Axie Oh

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The Demon and the LIght on a Kindle and a matcha latte rest on a marble table

Alexis:

Happy Pub Day! 

Final Fantasy meets Shadow and Bone in The Demon and the Light, the hotly anticipated follow-up to Axie Oh’s The Floating World.

The battle is over, but the war is just beginning…

The Demon and the Light is the sequel to The Floating World, which I read an ARC of in early 2025 and really enjoyed. I’m happy to say that The Demon and the Light was an explosive sequel. 

It has plenty of light vs darkness imagery. It explores themes of love, grief, responsibility, and more. Its main plot twist threw me for a loop. At first, I wasn’t sure if it would work, but Oh did a great job of making it believable and fit into the world.

This is an action-packed sequel, and the vibes were immaculate. There’s a lot of flying. There are sword fights. There are battles. There are demons and monsters. I flew through the story (quite literally, too, because I read it on a plane).

What I especially loved were the characters. While I liked the characters in the first book, I grew to love them even more—and it helped that their character ARCs were done perfectly. Ren and Sunho, the main characters, are often perfect foils for each other and complement each other so well. 

Jaeil, a side character in the first book, plays a more important role in the sequel, and I loved his character progression, as well. The characters definitely give me found family and Six of Crows vibes. 

My only main con was the same issue I had with the first book: the pacing in some of the critical scenes was a little off, and I think Oh could’ve lingered longer on them a lot more, especially the climatic final battle. 

Overall, without giving anything away, I definitely recommend this duology if you’re looking for a fast-paced, action-filled YA fantasy with dynamic characters, Korean mythology/steampunk worldbuilding, romance, and magic. 

Check out my review of The Floating World here!

VERDICT: ⛰️⛰️⛰️⛰️⛰️/5 

Thanks so much to Netgalley and Macmillian for my ARC in exchange for a review. 

Review: Red Demon by Sill Bihagia

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An ARC package of Red Demon sits on a wall

Alexis:

Happy October 1st! 🎃

Thanks so much to author Sill Bihagia for sending me this beautiful ARC package.

Red Demon was released on September 16th! It’s a science fiction/fantasy book with found family and themes of coming of age, resilience, and redemption. It has a mystery woven throughout and some really interesting worldbuilding.⁣ The bioengineering concept was fascinating. 

Overall, I enjoyed this one and appreciated Jesse’s resilience and will to survive. I liked reading from his POV, and my favorite part of the story was him forming a connection to his adopted brother, Asher. 

My main critique is that the pacing in the first half dragged, as Jesse growing up and finding his new family took up a large part of the book. I love a good coming of age story, but since this was advertised as a fast paced book, I expected just a little more action and for the plot to move along faster; the actual plot didn’t start until the second half of the story. Additionally, the ending felt too abrupt.  

VERDICT: ⭐⭐⭐/5

I have several more ARCs to read, and I look forward to digging into them this fall!

If you want to learn more about Red Demon, check out the synopsis below.

Synopsis:

On an isolated planet where unity is as engineered as its people, Jesse seeks the truth behind the slaughter of his family-starting with the immortal who spared him.

A century ago, two human lines nearly wiped each other out rather than acknowledge their shared humanity. But when Jesse’s mining town is slaughtered under mysterious circumstances, it’s clear ancient bigotries are still alive, and rebels have access to some magic or tech capable of wide-scale genocide.

The Red Demon bloodied her swords in that massacre-a bioengineered immortal left over from that century old war. Jesse expected her to be upholding his empire’s fragile peace, not killing her own. But Jesse is too optimistic and stubborn to break. Better days are coming, and he’s willing to take on an immortal to protect the life he’s rebuilt among the ashes.

Faruhar, the so-called Red Demon, is not the mastermind Jesse expects. Her fragmented mind is ravaged by guilt over crimes she cannot remember committing, and a code impressed on her by a few kind people she cannot forget.

Review: Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

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A hardcover copy of Under the Whispering Door rests on a deck surrounded by fallen leaves, a window bookmark, and a red holiday Starbucks cup.

Alexis:

Can you believe I managed to find Under the Whispering Door at a used bookstore? You bet I snatched it up the minute I saw it!

I don’t have a single bad thing to say about this book. I loved The House in the Cerulean Sea when I read it; it was such a whimsical and refreshing read. And this one was the same. It deals with some very heavy themes, and the main plotline deals with death, the afterlife, and grief. But Klune’s classic, quirky writing made this book such a joy to read. 

The humor in this book is hilarious, and with much more adult humor than in The House in the Cerulean Sea. I found myself laughing at jokes in nearly every chapter.

The characters are all well-rounded, with bright, distinctive personalities. Wallace, the main character, has a great character arc, after starting out as a workaholic asshole. And of course, the main setting of this book is a tea shop, and as a tea lover, I loved reading about Hugo—a ferryman and the owner of a tea shop called Charon’s Crossing Tea Shop. 

Like The House in the Cerulean Sea, Under the Whispering Door focuses on a found family. Though not quite as unique, with a lot of similarities to the former, this was a 5-star read based on the enjoyability of this book alone.

I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a slow-moving, character-driven, philosophical novel that explores what happens after death, with positive queer rep and dynamic characters. 

VERDICT: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

TW: Animal death (but not graphic or anything; just in relation to a dog ghost), anxiety, cancer (terminal), child death, death of parent (past, mentioned), depression, heart attack, suicide (mention), murder, outing (mentioned)