Francesca Simon

I really don't know how I feel about this one or if I care enough to really grapple with my feelings, which is odd because I was absolutely having a ball for a while there. But it's just sorta not a lot beyond the surface.

The story follows Hel, the half-dead god Norse goddess of death, from birth to Ragnarok, casting her as snarky, 'boy crazy', emo, girlboss teen with an acerbic attitude.

At first I was really enjoying the similarish tone to Harrow from Tamsyn Muir's Locket Tomb series, especially with the wonderful performance of Eleanor Tomlinson that has a similar timbre to Moira Quirk's glorious narration for Muir's books, but it's kind of left no actual impression on me and I had to kinda force myself to get though it. I thought Circe by Madeline Miller was great and I would most compare it to that with less depth, story arc, and the fact Circe seemed to be doing something new with the story from a historical/ mythological fantasy perspective.

I suppose the question I'm left with is, what was the point? The historical/ mythological fiction giving a character a new first person, protagonist perspective is generally used to explored a character in greater depth, especially one done dirty by events and their screen time, interpret them in a new way, often through a feminist lens, or using them much like science fiction as a medium to explore and/ or interrogate a contemporary issue. I don't really see this doing any of those beyond showing that Hel had a tough life. Unfortunately, this book doesn't really give her much depth or narrative, and, with the handling of her feelings for Balder and reaction to her yassification by the mortal Freya, it doesn't seem like a feminist reading.

I think the real shame is that this tone and prose really could have been something, but it ultimately comes off as running Hel's story through an 'AI' filter. That's really unfair and I don't mean to be so harsh on Simon, I simply mean that this is what if Hel was an emo teen girlboss? without actually exploring what that means.

The narration really is something else and I think I would have struggled so much more without it, but this is also the first audiobook I've upped the playback speed because I just wanted to finish it sooner.… (more)