The Weight of a Soul

by Elizabeth Tammi

When Lena's younger sister Fressa is found dead, their whole Viking clan mourns--but it is Lena alone who never recovers. Fressa is the sister that should've lived, and Lena cannot rest until she knows exactly what killed Fressa and why--and how to bring her back. She strikes a dark deal with Hela, the Norse goddess of death, and begins a new double life to save her sister. But as Lena gets closer to bringing Fressa back, she dredges up dangerous discoveries about her own family and finds herself in the middle of a devastating plan to spur Ragnaroek -a deadly chain of events leading to total world destruction. Still, with her sister's life in the balance, Lena is willing to risk it all. She's willing to kill. How far will she go before the darkness consumes her?

• ISBN13: 9781635830446
• Publish Date: 3 December 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Flux
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[shannonmiz]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight .

I gotta say, the reviews for this one so far do not do it justice. I found The Weight of a Soul to be beautiful, heartwrenching, and full of love. And so, we shall discuss!

What I Enjoyed:

This book is quite literally about the worth of a soul, and how far you're willing to go to save those you love. That is the question Lena must answer when her sister Fressa dies- of reasons no one can discern. Lena and Fressa have always been close, this much is clear from the start of the story. Lena can barely muster the strength to go on, yet her clan (and her parents, the leaders) want her to marry her sister's beloved and Lena's own dear friend, Amal. Lena cannot bear to lose her sister, nor can she stand to marry her betrothed, so she's bound and determined to bring Fressa back. And this is where the Norse mythology comes in!

I'll go ahead and admit it- I am a complete novice in Norse mythology (and most mythology if we're being honest). The author did a phenomenal job in introducing me to the world while still providing a cohesive plot and characters I grew to truly care about. I'll get into this more later, but I feel like I learned so very much about Norse mythology. And not just the facts, but the feelings behind it as well.

Ultimately, the book is incredibly morally gray. Would you or I make the same choices Lena make? Can you really place a price tag on a soul? It's these questions that really made me think throughout the book, and even after I was finished. And if you know me, you know that's kind of my fave.

Not Bad Stuff, But "Worth Mentioning" Stuff:

While I really enjoyed the mythology, it was a darn good thing I read this on my Kindle and was able to look up stuff. There were a lot of people/places/things that I simply had never heard of. Upon looking them up, I was good to go, and frankly I personally love learning new stuff (especially in a book like this). But you know, just take it into consideration is what I'm saying. I will also say that I did predict a kind of big thing, but it didn't really lessen the impact, either.

Bottom Line: A beautifully told story about loss, love, and hope in an historical and mythological Norse setting.

[Veronica 🦦]

This review can also be found on my blog.

C-/D+ | While the premise was good and interesting, the execution was unfortunately mediocre at best. The story drags on and on. The characters are boring. Although grief and denial are explored here, it was difficult to feel anything because things felt dry, flat, and stale. This book might be called The Weight of a Soul, but there’s little weight or soul in this book.

Part of the reason why I requested this book on NetGallery and got excited when I was approved was because I was drawn into it due to the synopsis. Who could blame me? The idea of a sisterly bond so strong you would make a deal with Hela to try and get her back? Yes, please. I love books that explore sibling relationships and loss and grief.

I can’t even begin to tell you how disappointed and utterly frustrated I am with this book.

Everything — from the characters and their relationships to the plot to the ending — felt forced and unnatural at times. There was no emotion. This book goes into how souls have weight and one soul is not equal to another just because they’re both warriors. But where is this book’s weight? Where is this book’s soul?

One of my biggest beefs with this book is that we’re always told things, but never actually shown evidence of why we should accept what we were told as truths. We’re told that the sisters mean a lot to each other, but never actually shown just how close their relationship was before Fressa’s death. Yeah, Lena is willing to murder to get her sister back, but if you want me to be able to empathize with her situation and choices, then I’m going to need more than being told of how good her relationship was with her sister.

Give me flashbacks of the two as children. Give me memories. Give me something. This book would have been far more compelling if I got to see Lena and Fressa’s relationship for myself that wasn’t just Lena’s random thoughts of how she was the first person to make Fressa smile. Like, okay? That’s cool. Give me more.

Another example of being told things rather than shown them is with Lena herself. She’s meant to become the tribe’s leader. Sure, she has to marry someone to gain that power, but her “destiny” (if you want to call it that) is to rule the clan.

“No—she had hesitated for power. For her rightful place as the leader of this village and its clans.”

Even she believes it’s her rightful place to rule. But she doesn’t act like a ruler. She doesn’t act like the heir apparent. If anything, she acts like a little girl playing dress up but will run away when responsibilities call.

Look, grief does all sorts of things to people. It can turn them into people they never wanted to become. But see, the problem is that we never get to see Lena be a leader or at least try to act like one. We never see Lena attempt to help her people through these tough and terrifying times. She makes comments like:

“ Her family’s hold on this village weakened with every day he stayed away, with every second the sun stayed out of the sky in the middle of summer.”

And:

“ Her family’s hold on this village weakened with every day he stayed away, with every second the sun stayed out of the sky in the middle of summer.”

Knowing this, I would have expected to see Lena taking up the mantle in some shape or form either in the present or in flashbacks, but I got none of that. It’s so disappointing, especially because I feel like Lena never truly got a chance to properly grieve nor did she ever actually develop. She was the same person from start to finish, albeit with blood on her hands.

This is made worse by the fact that Lena dies so she doesn’t even get to mature. Like wow, great. She brings Fressa back with her death, but at the cost of her never actually having full character development.

I don’t and can’t recommend this book. Despite it having an interesting premise, it was poorly executed.

Thank you to Flux and North Star Editions over at NetGalley for providing a copy of the eARC. All opinions are my own.