He skips school to play in PC cafes with his buddy and is often late to help his grandma with delivering food from their restaurant. Jihoon is charming and well liked (and boy does he know it), but he is also a dork and lazy.

But similarities aside, I adore that Jihoon is not a stereotypical schoolboy love interest. First of all, we are both afraid of frogs, and second, we both main the same champion (Ahri) in League of Legends. I appreciate the slow burn rather than the more commonplace “instalove” found in novels these days.Īs for Jihoon, he is my favorite character. It is satisfying to see Miyoung resist Jihoon’s attempts at friendship for a significant portion of the novel, because that is how a person like Miyoung would most likely handle that situation. She carries the guilt of every person she’s killed in order to keep herself alive, and she even only hunts morally corrupt men and evildoers. In fact, Miyoung probably hates herself more than anyone. Despite intentionally attending school, Miyoung keeps to herself and pushes everyone away, afraid of people finding out that she is actually a monster. Miyoung is an ice queen, and a damaged one at that.

Kat Cho writes young adult characters authentically. What makes this book stand out are the realistic characters. However, when Miyoung attempts to reabsorb her gumiho soul, the attempt fails catastrophically, leaving Miyoung with only one hundred days to make the choice between Jihoon’s life or her own immortality. Despite the potential danger, Jihoon is inexplicably drawn to her.Ī fragile bond is formed between the two as time passes and blooms into something more. He also discovers that the new transfer student at his school is that same gumiho. However, one night Miyoung encounters a boy being attacked by a goblin in the woods and decides to save his life, losing her fox bead (the source of her gumiho powers) in the process.Įnter Jihoon, a boy who now knows that all the stories his halmeoni (grandma) told him about fox spirits and the supernatural world are true because a beautiful girl with nine glowing fox tails saved his life from a forest goblin. As a gumiho, Miyoung must devour the souls of men in order to survive. The story of Wicked Fox follows Gu Miyoung, an eighteen year-old girl who is secretly a gumiho.

Wicked fox