Bride of the Water God by Mi-Kyung Yun

Title: Bride of the Water God
Author: Mi-Kyung Yun (Habaek-eui Shinbu)
Volumes: 22 (ongoing)
Volumes (English): 14 (ongoing)

When Soah's impoverished, desperate village decides to sacrifice her to the Water God Habaek to end a long drought, they believe that drowning one beautiful girl will save their entire community and bring much-needed rain. Not only is Soah surprised to be rescued by the Water God - instead of killed - she never imagined she'd be a welcomed guest in Habaek's magical kingdom, where an exciting new life awaits her! Most surprising, however, is the Water God himself... and how very different he is from the monster Soah imagined.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound | Goodreads | LibraryThing

No final thoughts with this one either. Another short post.

While the story line is convoluted and often time confusing, Bride of the Water God is the prettiest manhwa I've ever read. The artwork is downright gorgeous, especially the full color panels. I'll be honest though, I'm not really reading this series for the story, but for the artwork. In fact I'm about 13 volumes in and I'm not quite sure what's going on. The story really doesn't hold my interest.

I like the concept of this series, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. I like the magic in the story, especially the magic that leaves Habaek a child during daylight and an adult during the evening. I even like Soah, the human love interest, although I think she's a bit helpless at times. The whole human god love story, while not unique, is an interesting idea. However, all that being said, the story is ridiculously complicated and unclear. I'm not sure if this is a translation issue, bad writing, or a me being stupid issue. It could be a combination of all three. Whatever the reason, I find it hard to relate to a lot of the characters and I find the events to be a bit erratic. Also, the motivation for a lot of the characters seems unclear to me. I mean I understand the emotion behind many of their actions, but I'm not always clear why they feel the way they do.

I will say some of this is becoming clearer as the story progresses, and I think the later volumes are actually better than the early ones, but I still find this series to be a struggle to read and at times rather boring. However, the artwork is incredible. Honestly with some of the panels you don't really need words, the pictures themselves have enough emotion that you can get the gist of what's going on. I do feel that 13 volumes in, I should have stronger feelings for the series which is probably why I haven't picked it up in awhile. I'm just not all that invested. If you're looking for an okay story with beautiful artwork, this is it.