Whew, that was uh, something.

(I want to preface this review by reminding others that Mackenzi Lee has made some problematic choices in the past, from signing the books of other authors without their permission to how poorly she handled writing a book with a trans MC. Because of this, things that I may have left slip for other authors I may have judged more harshly here. However, no matter who this was written by, this book would not be considered above 2 stars for me.)

I wasn't planning on reading any more books by Lee, but I still had this arc lying around from BEA, and decided to finally get down to it. There are 3 main issues I had with this book that ended up making the entire book suck.

1. Poor queer rep

From other reviews, it seems like Lee told fans that she would finally write the queer Loki that fans deserve, and write Loki in all his pansexual/genderfluid glory. If she made these promises, she did not deliver. The only 'rep' was offhand references here and there, with the only actual 'romance' being heterosexual (with some possibly romantic tension with another male character that doesn't actually go anywhere). Loki's genderfluidity is told, not shown, in a single conversation that seems to come out of nowhere, and that nothing ever happens with it. Loki uses he/him pronouns for the entirety of the novel, and the only 'sign' of fluidity might be the fact he likes having his nails painted black and wearing boots that were made for girls (honestly, I don't count this at all). While he does shapeshift into female character sometimes, it is only ever to further a plan. Overall, this part of the book was very weak, and frustrating, and honestly not any better than the marvel movies themselves (which is, saying something).

2. Really cringy references to other Marvel characters/stories

This is overall just a small part of the issues I had with the book, but it was still there. This series is officially written for Disney/Marvel, and therefore fits within that universe rather than actual Norse mythology. This led to some more interesting world building, but it mainly led to cringy references. They weren't frequent, but honestly none of them were well done. It ranged from an offhand mention of someone named 'Stark' doing something with tech, and then an entire conversation where Loki basically recommended the name Shield for the secret organization that dealt with magical things. What could have been a nice nod to the stories that this one built off of turned instead to overt references that tried to be really obvious about the fact that they were supposed to be references.

3. Loki just, was not Loki.

A lot of other reviews have already touched on this, but this was honestly the biggest let down of this book. Honestly, this book might've not been that bad on its own, had it not been connected to this wealth of lore (both Norse and Marvel). I get that this is Loki's 'beginnings' and is supposed to show who he was before he was a trickster, but he was so weak as a character without it? He was still written as the trickster (his personality and nicknames were still built around it) except, without the trickery. He honestly just spends the entire book being tricked instead or blamed for things that aren't his fault at all. This latter part is even more frustrating because this was supposed to be what his turn to 'evil' was hinged on, how unfair he was treated, but the way he was treated was not believable to any extent. Thor's/Odin's/everyone else's prejudice instead seems to have come from literally nowhere, and it just makes all those dialogues read extremely hollow and false. It's just extremely illogical.

Overall, I really really wish Disney gave this contract to someone else, both because of all the drama around Lee and how poorly done this felt. The next one supposedly follows Nebula and Gamora (some of my favorite characters), but now, I'll definitely be skipping it, and anything else Lee writes.