“A person was never truly dead as long as someone, somewhere, remembered them. Memories made you immortal. This is why men went to war.”

TBM was one of my most anticipated reads of 2018, and that stemmed a lot from it being a retelling of Beowulf. I read the original story in my senior English Literature class, and I love this old story of English heroism even amongst all its problems (it’s fun to critique and discuss!).
Sadly, I was ultimately disappointed. There was great female representation in the fact that nearly all the heroes/ villains were female. I felt it was truly genderbent because almost every character is switched besides Hrothgar and his men. I loved how this book showed a nod to strong feminism and womanhood, and it was, quite frankly, beautiful to read.
Now my issues arise with the slow pacing. It felt like I was, at first, dragging my feet, and then it eventually felt as if a snail was moving faster than me. I love details and I love world building, but so many words and moments to me felt irrelevant. Freya is our main character of the group, and she just repeated her thoughts and complaints wayyyy to much for my liking. It started to get a tad old.
Then my skimming began.
I even skimmed handfuls of pages because the details weren’t relevant or at least to me they weren’t. Due to this, I wasn’t able to connect with these characters. Emotional scenes fell flat, and my disappointment just grew greater in me. Characters even made decisions that made no sense to me, and I was left scratching my head. I’m so sad that this book didn’t live up to my expectations, and maybe they were too high to begin with. That could be my issue. I’ll own up to it 100%.
I think this book is the final nail in my coffin that I shouldn’t read classic retellings. First it was The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein and now it’s The Boneless Mercies. The English major in me needs to stop.
If you decide to pick it up, I hope you enjoy it much more than I did. The writing via pacing just isn’t for me sadly. Though I will say the quotes from this novel are ASTOUNDING
Thanks to FSG/ Macmillan for sending me an ARC to review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.