The Last Rhee Witch by Jenna Lee-Yun (review)

Reviewed by: The Last Rhee Witch by Jenna Lee-Yun April Spisak Lee-Yun, Jenna The Last Rhee Witch. Disney Hyperion, 2024 352p Trade ed. ISBN 9781368099073 17. 99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 6-8 Twelve-year-old Ronnie knows that her dad is worried about both her recent compulsion to rhyme everything she says and her ongoing anxieties, so she agrees to go to summer camp more to reassure him than to actually enjoy the experience. Given her general suspicion of the world, Ronnie's not terribly surprised when things at the camp go awry right away, as she spots a gwishin, or Korean folkloric ghost, haunting the grounds. The gwishin is eerie, but the real threat is a dokkaebi who is determined to hunt down the last Rhee witch, and Ronnie will have to find allies to defeat the dokkaebi, especially when it becomes clear she might just be who the creature is looking for. Ronnie has always worried that she wasn't Korean enough, having been raised by a single dad who was raised in a white family and also struggled with complex feelings about his Korean and American identities. So, finding her camp to be haunted by creatures from Korean mythology is all the more unexpected. Ronnie is honest about her own quirks, and her dedication to tamp them down in order to help her dad worry less is admirable—she knows that he loves her deeply and just wants her to be happy, just as she knows that once it becomes clear that those quirks are actually witchy behaviors he will accept her without reservation. Lee-Yun ably balances folklore, realism, and a bit of suspenseful mystery, with readers putting together the pieces of Ronnie's early childhood along with her and likely with equal surprise to her own. Although source notes about Korean folkloric characters would have been welcome, there are enough details for curious readers to find more information on their own. Copyright © 2024 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois