Week 29 Review: The Forest of Stolen Girls

From Goodreads:

After her father vanishes while investigating the disappearance of 13 young women, a teen returns to her secretive hometown to pick up the trail in this second YA historical mystery from the author of The Silence of Bones.

Hwani's family has never been the same since she and her younger sister went missing and were later found unconscious in the forest, near a gruesome crime scene. The only thing they remember: Their captor wore a painted-white mask.

To escape the haunting memories of this incident, the family flees their hometown. Years later, Detective Min—Hwani's father—learns that thirteen girls have recently disappeared under similar circumstances, and so he returns to their hometown to investigate... only to vanish as well.

Determined to find her father and solve the case that tore their family apart, Hwani returns home to pick up the trail. As she digs into the secrets of the small village—and reconnects with her now estranged sister—Hwani comes to realize that the answer lies within her own buried memories of what happened in the forest all those years ago.

My Review:
This was a really fantastic mystery! I'm really enjoying the way that June Hur is setting up these mysteries, set in a culture that is really unknown to me, and in time periods that pretty different. And this one in particular, with the girls being collected as tribute, was pretty awful to be a young female! 

I'm really coming to enjoy June Hur's crafting of mysteries. This one where her and her sister were taken, but were recovered, and now a whole lot of girls have been? Yeah, it was really interesting watching Hwani follow in her father's investigation to try and find him and the girls.

There was a bunch of family interpersonal drama, what with Hwani's sister staying behind in the town, while Hwani and her father left. I loved how it affected the investigation, and how it affected their relationship as they grew closer together again and worked things out!

That these girls are being collected to give tribute to this one leader guy, yeah, that was pretty despicable, even if it was part of the time. But parents would pay so their daughter would be left alone. So it was really satisfying to see the ending, even if the resolution of her missing father was more bittersweet. 

This was a fantastic read with an intriguing mystery, and I can't wait to read more! 

Author: June Hur 
Read: July 19th, 2023
Source: Library
Reason Why: Love her writing and it sounded really great, and it's a Historical Fiction 2023 Book and a WoW Book! 
Publisher: Listening Library
Published: April 20th 2021

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars