Hello friends, welcome to another post! Thank you for taking the time to visit here, I appreciate that. Today’s review is another mythological re-telling, however, it is not a Greek mythology re-telling, this time we’re going up north, enjoying the breeze and mischievous gods of Nordic mythology. Buckle up and let’s go into the review. ✨
The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec was a book that went fairly fast regarding my ability to read fast, mainly because I had a physical copy of the book. While I was reading the book, I didn’t think much about it, I didn’t really feel the connection between me and the characters and this was mainly because of the way this book was written. By no means that I say it was a badly written book. However, the language the author used was quite… different. As a graduate literature student, I can say that I have read my fair share when it came to classics and especially poems, ancient ones. I have also read somewhat a good number of mythological retellings, and this is my problem with this book. After reading Circe by Madeline Miller and Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood and many others that I do not actually remember; this book’s language was so off: trying to be poetic and character-focused, thought-focused while keeping this… weird modern sense in it at the same time. I am not saying that you cannot write a good book without using any modern language in it, however, the fact that both of the trials were crashing into each other every so often, especially when Loki talked, bothered the hell out of me. The author tried to focus on the characters’ feelings, especially our witch’s feelings. However, while they were talking and having a dialogue with each other, everything seemed so childish and every build-up she has written until that point just went away instantly. Moreover, it is not about only Loki and Boda. It’s between every other character, even in the most crucial scenes.
If I am going to be quite honest with you, I only loved Hel, as a character I say to myself, because she was somewhat more structural and well put than the other characters. She had her own characteristics and she had her own way of thinking, which the author did a very good job off-putting through to your eyes while everybody else seemed like children with so much power and ego for themselves.
I can’t say that I liked the “romance” section of this book because obviously, I couldn’t see anything regarding the romance. All I could see was the lies and the form of love that is not healthy towards each other between the three characters and nothing else. I’m not judging when it comes to love however I just basically didn’t enjoy how romance and love and love for “children” were shown in this book. It wasn’t my cup of tea. I rather see something more devastating or something that has been done with proper thinking. I couldn’t see that from any of the characters because everyone was so selfish, they basically let their children -which had nothing to do with all this mess- get ruined because of what people call pride and love and right. Well, I can say that one moment I thought to myself what would happen if I was a mother and my children were taken away from me? Would I wreak havoc? Would I accept my fate and keep being myself since my children are immortal? Would I end my life? Who knows. I hope no mother has to go through something that horrible.
Actually, the second part of this book was the only reason that I am giving it 3.5 stars. I didn’t like the first chapter at all, everything was so mixed up, so confusing and while she was trying to find herself, she was letting everything else get ruined because she was too scared to step forward, but the second chapter of this book was somewhat more realistic than how I expected it would be. I could feel her devastation and fear and pain through the pages and again I love Hel as a character because she has so much potential in her. Overall it was a nice book to read however it wasn’t one of my favourite mythological retellings considering that I don’t really like (because I do not really know much about it) Nordic mythology as a whole. I am willing to learn more and read more about this history though, I actually was very curious about the monsters and the names that I read through the book and often I found myself opening my phone or computer to check a name whether they were someone from the history, or the author changed things up. I felt like the first part of the book was basically “an exact retelling of the story” with a modern twist -as the way of speaking- however, the second part was more personal and changed and it had more features when it comes to a mother and her children.
I don’t see myself reading this book again in near future, and I can tell that I understand it is a good book. It didn’t give me the feeling of need, and I didn’t want to read it again sometime in near future. This book simply wasn’t it for me. Nevertheless, it wasn’t the worst thing that I have read it was a nice change and I would like to read more about Nordic mythology. Did you read it? If so, what did you think about it? Let me know! 📖💖
Luster of Books 