Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5

| Writing - 4.5 Stars |

| Plot - 3 Stars |

|Characters - 3 stars |

|Enjoyment - 4 stars | 

Genre: YA, Scifi / Fantasy, 

People who should read this: If you love Nordic stories, magic, and crisp imagery.

One rewrite later and… well... this isn’t the sophomore book I was expecting from Young. 

When she said that the first draft wasn’t working and that she decided to rewrite it all for the better, I thought we would be gifted with something great. Not a barely there story that needed a lot more meat. Maybe that’s what happens when a publishing house pushes for a book two when there was never supposed to be a book two. 

And I’m not saying that her idea for book two was bad. It was just barely formed.

First - don’t even think about reading this book without reading Sky in the Deep first. You won’t be wasting your time. Sky in the Deep is a really good book and will help ease you into the chaotic world Young has created. There are no guide markers to help you in The Girl the Sea Gave Back. You’re just thrown right in. Many parts allude to this epic battle ten years ago. The relationships formed in that book are hinted at. And the words… and the words. It’s a mess. I don’t understand why they kept pushing for this to just be a companion novel. Who cares if it’s not about the two main protagonists in the first book. Let this one stand proud as book two.

Before I head down this long winded trail about what sucked, I’ll take a moment to tell you the good things. Though Young fell apart in the plot department, her writing held up the rest of the book. All those debut book jitters where gone. Each sentence and description was a poetic beauty. I was immersed in the world. I felt the fog. I heard the battle cries. I felt the slice of the blade. Young’s writing alone was the thing that kept me reading and what ultimately saved the book for me in the end. 

Oh the end you say… what a way to not wrap up the future. If you like clear cut endings, don’t read this book. I’m sure it’s explained with all the foreshadowing, but there is no definite answer. Read if you only wish to piece together the conclusion yourself.

My main issue with the story was that there really wasn’t much meat to hold it together. Tova and Halvard have dual POVs. Where one ended, another began and overlapped. There was even some repeat, which doesn’t help its cause. The book is so small to begin with that the repeated moments end up feeling like filler. When Tova had a flashback scene, Halvard was forced to have one too. How is it that these two characters would have a monumental moment in the exact same year? They wouldn’t. 

With flashbacks you get timelines. Timelines needs to be clear and concise. Instead they felt like random years that weren’t easy to follow. 

Finally, I hate to be like this as my own book is going through the same type of critiquing, but I didn’t like Tova. She was pushed around with her one big act not being that big. If it was and I just missed it, there wasn’t enough at stake or enough emotional resonance to tell me otherwise. 

Yet still, I gaze upon this book with a fondness. The cover is beautiful. With more thoughts, the ideas could have matched. I like that we get to see the Nadhir ten years later when the peace between them has really settled in. I like to see how the other characters are doing. However, nothing is clearly said about any of them. And the writing was a breath of fresh air that I can only hope to achieve one year.

Happy Reading

Love Kait

Reading Challenge: 86/100