Liv The Book Nerd: {DNF} Warrior of the Wild by Tricia Levenseller

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

{DNF} Warrior of the Wild by Tricia Levenseller

Page count: 329

Published by: Feiwel & Friends

Published on: February 26, 2019

Genres: YA Fantasy & Romance

Rating: DNF @ 50%

Goodreads synopsis:

How do you kill a god?

As her father's chosen heir, eighteen-year-old Rasmira has trained her whole life to become a warrior and lead her village. But when her coming-of-age trial is sabotaged and she fails the test, her father banishes her to the monster-filled wilderness with an impossible quest: To win back her honor, she must kill the oppressive god who claims tribute from the villages each year—or die trying.

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Hey, guys!

"How do you kill a god?"

I'd love to know!

When diving into Tricia Levenseller's 2019 stand-alone, Warrior of the Wild, I was excited to start another novel inspired by one of my favorite mythologies and ancient cultures, the Vikings, and Norse mythology. The entire premise of this novel had me at the edge of my seat. All I wanted to know was how this story would pan out, would I love the characters, was the god-like Loki? Would I fall in love with the god? Would I fall in love with Rasmira?

Unfortunately, within a few chapters, I wasn't quite enjoying the story. The writing style was really simple, the world-building was incredibly lacking, and the stakes just didn't seem all that pressing to me. Rasmira was incredibly annoying and whiney. When she could possibly have a breakthrough and change her perspective, there wasn't much of an actual period of change. If she was questioned or confronted she just would say "oh okay," explain common-sense ideas and concepts, and then move on. It just was just so surface level to me. I didn't enjoy it.

Additionally, the relationships established in the first section of the book didn't seem genuine at all. The relationships Rasmira has with her parents and siblings and the guy just wasn't it. They read as very forced and unbelievable to me. It just didn't jive with me.

While I only managed to read half of the book before marking it as a DNF, I just feel like what I read was really unsatisfactory. It was all so shallow and surface level. The novel is quite short, but it didn't have any substance to keep me interested. The "Viking inspired worldbuilding" was just not there. There was hardly any actual interesting world-building. The only comparison I could make would be the intensity of the society and the use of axes.

Overall, the half of the book that I read was forced, had unnecessary pining and romance, surface-level world and character building, and a main character that I could hardly tolerate.

This just wasn't for me at all.

What are some of your favorite mythology-inspired reads?

Happy reading!

Olivia

~ Liv the Book Nerd ~