Lee offers a perfect balance of space opera and Korean mythology with enough complexity to appeal to teens.' If the story gets a bit thin along the way, that's okay, as the plot barrels along at such a breakneck pace you hardly notice.' A review on Publishers Weekly said, 'in this highly original novel. The Laughing Place reviewed the main character, Min, as likeable and fun, and even said that Lee has 'crafted such a finely tuned narrative that Dragon Pearl can stand alone as an excellent story or be the start of a lengthy space saga.' Colleen Mondor of Locus comparing the book to the Perils of Pauline serial in the early 1900s, stating that it 'nailed what the younger action crowd craves. The book has been translated and printed in other languages, including Polish, Indonesian, Ukrainian, and Italian. Rick Riordan Presents made a paperback edition available in English on January 7, 2020. It was released in hardcover, audiobook, and e-book format on January 15, 2019. When Min befriends two cadets on the ship, a dragon and a goblin disguised as humans, she learns that they are quickly approaching the Ghost Sector, in which the lost Dragon Pearl is said to have been laid to rest. Meanwhile, she communicates with a dead cadet, Bae Jang, to whom she promises vengeance, in order to maintain her secret. She finds the ship her brother was stationed on, leading her to pose as a recently deceased cadet on that ship so that she is enabled in her continued investigation.

After she leaves her home planet, Jinju, on a freighter ship, she begins uncovering more secrets. The main character Min, a teenage fox spirit ( gumiho), runs away from her home, which is crowded with family members all staying in the same house, in order to figure out what happened to her lost brother, Jun, who was a cadet in the Space Forces before his disappearance. A sequel, Tiger Honor, was published in January 2022. Like its fellow 'Rick Riordan Presents' books, the novel was praised for its diverse representation and plot and characterization. A short story by Lee about the characters in the book was featured in the anthology book The Cursed Carnival and Other Calamities.

The book is a mix of Korean mythology and science fiction as the main character travels the galaxy. Dragon Pearl is a middle grade novel written by Yoon Ha Lee and published on Januby Disney Hyperion under their ' Rick Riordan Presents' publishing imprint.

The dragon pearl yoon ha lee