Valkyrie Rising (Valkyrie Rising, #1)

by Ingrid Paulson

While visiting Norway, sixteen-year-old Ellie must step out of the shadow of her popular older brother, join forces with his infuriating best friend, and embrace her Valkyrie heritage to rescue teen boys kidnapped to join the undead army of the ancient god, Odin.

• ISBN10: 0062025724
• ISBN13: 9780062025722
• Publish Date: 9 October 2012
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: HarperCollins
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 352
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.com.au/9780062025722

Reviews

[inlibrisveritas]

Valkyire Rising held so much potential for me and I was really wanting this to be the book of Januaray for me. I wanted it to blow all of the other books away, but it really didn’t. The overall concept is fantastic because while using the gods of old as a basis is quite used, the Norse gods are not…and I love the Norse. They are strong, wily, and dangerous in a way that sets them a part from all the other mythos out there. The pantheon is filled with strong personalities of all kinds and the creatures involved are just as strong. I guess it’s a bit unfair of me to expect something that pulls all of that in and still delivers a YA story, but it certainly tried.

The first huge plus for me is that it is actually set in Norway, there are so many books out there that focus on the Greek and they are based in the US…and that bothers me in a way that can’t even be described. It’s nice to have a different setting and one that’s familiar to the supernatural players. The second plus is having a Valkyrie as a main character because not only are Valkyries strong they are fierce and unbending. I wouldn’t say Ellie is all of that really but I enjoyed her transition and journey to become who she truly is, and I liked that she didn’t immediately go from being a nice girl to the ultimate kick ass woman. She takes thing slowly and she fights her nature a bit because it is so different from who she has been. However she is a bit flat and I didn’t really like her or dislike her, she just was…Tuck is an interesting character but he fell a tad flat as well and he has a huge information drop near the end that was just too much all at once. I did really like Loki and he’s the only one who seemed to know just what he was doing the whole time, but he doesn’t show up very often.

I think the major issue with this book is how fast it moves, it reads like a book that only takes 200 pages to tell but there is enough information that it could have been longer than it is…and it would have been better for it. I wanted more from it. I wanted more from the characters, I wanted more resistance and more in the terms of consequences as somethings just happened to easily, I wanted depth and to feel the true gritty nature of what they were dealing with…but I didn’t.

It is a decent story and while I wasn’t pulled in like I wanted to be I know I will continue the series because there is still that potential for this to be a fantastic story.

[Ashley]

booknook — Young Adult book reviews

4.5 stars

Before Valkyrie Rising, I had never read a book about Norse mythology. This was the perfect book to introduce me!

Valkyrie Rising is an action-packed, snarky romance that tell the story of Ellie—a girl who kicks some serious ass! Ellie is a fantastic main character. She's very easy to relate to and develops beautifully throughout the book. She starts out as a girl longing for her independence, but she doesn't really have the strength to do anything about it. But by the end of the book, she's fiercely independent, kicking serious ass, and really takes matters into her own hands. I LOVE HER!

The romance in this book is phenomenal. Ellie and Tuck have terrific chemistry! They have some excellent sarcastic, playful banter that had me giggling with excitement! Their romance develops really slowly, which is awesome! No insta-love here! Tuck is made out to be a bit of a "grazer" when it comes to relationships, but we really see him change throughout the book. He's definitely a guy that will make you drool and swoon and all those other lovey-dovey verbs.

Graham is the one really annoying character in the book, but he is the kind of guy you love to hate. I don't mind hating characters in books as long as it's intended and as long as the main character hates that person too. It only drives me crazy if the main character tolerates someone else's annoying horrible behaviour and doesn't do anything about it. Graham is a really overbearing and overprotective brother who drove me completely bonkers. But Ellie really despised his behaviour and one of the purposes of the book is Ellie striving to break free of Graham and start leading her own life and making her own decisions.

Ingrid Paulson kept me engaged and loving the story from start to finish! The end of Valkyrie Rising in particular is packed with action, intensity, and super epic ass-kicking! I loved learning about the Norse mythology; it was such an easy world to fall into! Ultimately this is the story about a girl looking for independence and how one summer sets the stage for her to finally grasp it. It's definitely a coming of age story that a lot of people can relate to (despite the fantasy elements ;)).

I highly recommend this book if you want a fun, heart-warming romance, a bit of sibling rivalry, and a strong heroine who really rocks the story!

[jnikkir]

Loved this. I sincerely hope we hear about a sequel soon because YOU CAN'T END IT LIKE THAT YOU JUST CAN'T.

More review to come later. Possibly.

[ladygrey]

I really like YA stories that branch out into myth and legend and in that way this reminded me of [b:Starcrossed|9462795|Starcrossed (Starcrossed, #1)|Josephine Angelini|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1306793074s/9462795.jpg|10862992]. The Norse mythology was fun and I liked the way she adapted it for a modern setting.

Admittedly, it took me a while to get into the story because I had a hard time with the physical, action descriptions. Like she's crawling on a roof but in the next sentence her ankle is dangling over the edge. Crawling implies on hands and knees so how is anything dangling down off the side except her toes maybe? Or when she's hiding behind geranium pots but then someone is right next to her - how did they manage that without knocking over the geraniums? I just had a hard time placing where things were in the world or how the characters were moving through it which kept me out of the story for a while.

Eventually, though, it became more seamless or easier to follow or I just stopped noticing inconsistencies. The characters were fun and Ellie wasn't infuriating. Even when she momentarily did the exact wrong, typical YA heroine dumb thing, she had an actual logical reason or it only lasted for a page or whatever, she wasn't dumb at all and she glanced upon a few tropes but never fell into any of them.

The story was interesting, but I already mentioned how I liked the way [a:Ingrid Paulson|5322924|Ingrid Paulson|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1349908211p2/5322924.jpg] handled the Norse mythology. Mostly I liked that it was a surprising story. Every time I expected it to go in one direction because that's how all YA books go, she feinted left but totally went right. It was refreshing and made it a more interesting read. There was about a day at the beginning of the third act that seemed kind of pointless running around with an urgency that never really materialized. But there was enough character development in there that I didn't mind too much and it didn't drag down the story, really. I liked the way Ellie handled the change in her and I really liked Tuck's reaction to it. But it didn't make sense that in the beginning everyone kept emphasizing that Valkyrie had to keep their word once given, but in the end they kept insisting to Astrid that she had a choice. And Ellie broke her word to Loki. So it seemed that the whole inciting action from Astrid, while propelling the story into existence, wasn't really necessary.

But mostly the characters were fun. Ellie and Tuck and Graham had great interactions and were fun to follow through this story.

And I like the cover a lot, very pretty. But why is she in a cocktail dress? Jeans or something more ancient looking would have both made more sense. It's not like she's going clubbing in the middle of everything. weird.

I did love that it's a self-contained story. As I got toward the end I kept looking at how many pages I had left and wondering if she could wrap it up or if she was going to just let the whole thing fall off a cliff. I'm so glad I don't have to wait for a book two, even though I would read another set in this world because it's fun.