A Thousand Steps into Night by Traci Chee

Thank you to Clarion Teen and NetGalley for providing this book as a digital galley in exchange for an honest review.

One-Sentence Summary:

Upon being cursed by a demon, serving girl Miuko must travel with her magpie companion and avoid a demon prince to become human and live in her village once again.

My Review:

For a book about a girl turning into a malevolence demon, this book is surprisingly fun. This is the story of Miuko, a girl cursed to become a demon unless her human soul can prevail and she can kill the demon prince following her before she fully turns. This book is really told in the style of a fairy tale, which I really love. It reads normally, but the plot structure is like you're reading a myth, which is so fun. There are also so many interesting characters to observe, between humans Miuko scares or spirits she enlists. My favorites were Senara and Geiki (obviously) but everyone in this story is someone worth reading about. Geiki's natural charisma really humanizes Miuko even more than before in making her more lighthearted during a hard situation. The world itself is done so well. I did think it was tiresome to have such a detailed world that you needed FOOTNOTES to say what everything was, and I still do, but it thins out after a while to be more manageable. I thought that while the footnotes were cumbersome, it was overall very readable since most things were recurring and not entirely new. Given that Miuko herself doesn't know everything about the hierarchy of spirits or how on earth she can undo her curse, it's easy to learn with her. In terms of the plot, I did think there were a few too many twists and turns. It wasn't too many for the book itself, just a lot to keep up with. There was a segment of the book that was entirely unexpected and while it did make everything make sense a bit more, it also delayed the climax of the novel by a lot. This was really the only thing that bothered me though, and as I just said, it was extremely plot-relevant. Overall, I'd definitely recommend this to fans of dark fantasy with detailed worldbuilding. Although I personally would've gotten fed up with the sexism and exclusion and just became a demon, I enjoyed reading about Miuko's journey and every part of the book.

⭐⭐⭐⭐✨/5

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