The Forest of Stolen Girls

I love reading books set in places I've lived. 

So I was super hype about this YA book being set in Korea.

Oh, and it's about missing teenagers who are being kidnapped and trafficked.

Min Hwani travels to Jeju in an attempt to find her missing father and reunite with her sister, Maewol. Hwani was sent a notebook containing information about a case her detective father was working when he went missing. She remembers little of her time spent on the island but is determined to finish her father's investigation. Upon Hwani's arrival, a missing girl turns up dead, in the same forest where she and 12 other girls were last seen. Maewol is practicing to become a Shaman and is called upon to find spiritual details surrounding the young girl's death.

Hwani and Maewol have a unique connection to this particular forest; they may have witnessed a murder. Either the fear or the bone shattering cold paralyzed the girls. They were not found for several hours. Because of their time alone in the forest, Maewol was believed to have shamanic insights. Thus separating the sisters; Hwani on the main peninsula, while Maewol stayed in Jeju.

This book was a little messy to me. I constantly was asking myself how we got to certain scenes. It was almost as if we were just dropped into a scene without any kind of warning. The author led us to the ideas wonderfully, but then the page breaks and we're suddenly in the mountains instead of the Shaman's hut. It was just an odd way for this story to be written.