Valkyrie Rising (Valkyrie Rising, #1)

by Ingrid Paulson

[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.