The Monstrous Child

by Francesca Simon

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

**I received this book free of charge in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to LibraryThing and Faber & Faber for this opportunity**

I feel like this book had a lot of potential, then it tried to cover too much ground too quickly. In this book, Francesca Simon covers a plethora of myths, starting at Hel's birth and moving on towards Ragnarok. We meet a LOT of characters and we go through them all so quickly that with the exception of her giantess friend, we don't really get to know any of them enough to care. I understand this is the third book in a series, but I feel like the story would have been better served more fleshed out and over the course of several books.

I really liked Hel's voice. She was angry and witty and sarcastic. Given her history, she had every right to be! Unfortunately, this anger also leads to a lot of ranting and rambling on Hel's part and it just got repetitive after a while.

HOWEVER. I appreciate the fact that Simon chose to remain loyal to Norse mythology. This in not the story of an average teenage girl who eventually became Hel, Queen of the Underworld. Most mythology is weird. Gods are born in strange and precarious ways, and that is EXACTLY how Simon runs with the story. Hel's siblings are a snake and a wolf and yup, that's correct per the mythology. It's not what we'd normal see in fiction, but it's technically canon.

Overall, I did like this story, and I read it really quickly. It was interesting and witty and fun but there was a lot of room for improvement in the speed of the story, the fleshing out of the world and characters, and personally I think we could have done with a better dialogue/description balance. Plus, Hel never changed or matured... I felt like the character didn't grow at all. I don't know. I liked it, but it's definitely a two star book for me.

You can read a more detailed review of this book as well as other reads on my blog.