Holy. Crap.

ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Well, this was... something.

I'll start by saying that it's very obvious the author cares about Norse mythology, and did his best to do it justice. I know very little about viking culture so I won't comment on that aspect, but from what I could tell, it was well done.

As for, literally everything else, I'm not quite sure what to say or how to put my feelings into words. The book was too short, and yet it was the longest 120 pages I've ever read. There was action on nearly every page, and yet I had to fight to stay engaged. The writing style was so extremely odd that it gave the story itself a very disjointed feeling.

Ladda was an extremely passionate, fierce protagonist that should have inspired me to care about the story as well. And yet, I could never find myself sharing her passions because she moved on so quickly. Her affairs are meant to be all-consuming, yet they are forgotten nearly two paragraphs later. How is anyone supposed to believe you truly loved someone if the second something changes, you're in the arms of another man? I believe this was an attempt to make Ladda a strong, independent woman, but to me it just made her appear callous and flippant.

I'll also add that this would have worked better as an adult book. Especially with the marriages and affairs and even just the discussions of politics. Maybe my opinion would have been different had the story been given more time, more space to breathe. Perhaps I would have understood why Ladda moved on so quickly if her relationships with others and the world around her hadn't been rushed quite so much.

As it stands, the whole book reads like a dream sequence from a movie, with fragments of a life lived and only hints at information and emotions that should be important to the viewer/reader.

ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

TW: Discussions of a mentally unstable parent.

This was fun. And I don't mean that in a sarcastic, this-was-painful way. It was genuinely a fun story, with an interesting concept and a quick pace that made the book seem to fly by. There was something so... nostalgic, for lack of better terms, about this story. It gave me old YA vibes which, paired with a story about literally becoming part of your favorite series, definitely gave it a wistful air. Plus, added bonus, there were some parts that were funny . It was nice to have a story that didn't take itself too seriously.

There were, however, just a few things that kept me from rating it higher. The first, and most prevalent, one being that some of it just didn't make sense? It's a fantasy story about entering your favorite book series, so clearly, not everything needed to make sense. But there were still some things that I personally wish would have been explained better. I never got a full grasp on the world, or the way the magic system worked (I'm exhausted so that could be part of it, just saying lol) There were moments I was pulled out of the story because they're in an alternate Houston and for some reason, it just messed with my head.

Overall, this was a nice, fun story that I'd recommend to people in need of a light read with comical characters.