The Girl The Sea Gave Back by Adrienne Young
For as long as she can remember, Tova has lived among the Svell, the people who found her washed ashore as a child and use her for her gift as a Truthtongue. Her own home and clan are long-faded memories, but the sacred symbols and staves inked over every inch of her skin mark her as one who can cast the rune stones and see into the future. She has found a fragile place among those who fear her, but when two clans to the east bury their age-old blood feud and join together as one, her world is dangerously close to collapse. For the first time in generations, the leaders of the Svell are divided. Should they maintain peace or go to war with the allied clans to protect their newfound power? And when their chieftain looks to Tova to cast the stones, she sets into motion a series of events that will not only change the landscape of the mainland forever but will give her something she believed she could never have again—a home.
A story told in two points of view about two tribes at war with each other after a prolonged time of peace.Remember me ranting and raving about Sky in the Deep? Well this is the second book in that series. Technically I think it is a standalone novel but I personally think they overlap enough that Sky in the Deep needs to be read first. When I saw this book was coming out, I requested it like crazy. I'm so happy to have been gifted a physical copy from the publisher! Like Sky in the Deep, this book features some graphic war scenes - reader beware! Ready to hop into the review? Let's do it!
This book ended on a real high note for me. The war scenes are well written and fast paced. They wrap you up in the pace and leave you feverishly turning the pages. I enjoyed the last bit of the book a lot. This sentiment reminded me a lot of the Red Queen series, where most of the book you're not loving it and the end is so good that you end up rating the book a lot higher than you thought you would.I loved getting a glimpse back to my old friends lives! And by friends I mean the characters previously written in Sky in the Deep. Fictional friends totally count as friends!One of the main narrators is Halvard- it's great to see where he is now, and his interactions with the other members of his tribe. It is also really interesting to learn about what was happening in this world of theirs with other tribes during the time period of Sky in the Deep!This might be a silly pro, but honestly the cover of this book is unreal. It's so well designed, and there are different textures. You just feel cool carrying it around. It almost makes you want to read it longer so more people can see you reading it.
There were some errors while reading that made some sentences confusing. Because this is an advanced readers copy, this shouldn't be held against the overall rating of the book, so I didn't factor that in. I mean, I'm mentioning it because I should- but I'm hopeful that all of it will be corrected before printing.In the beginning of the book I had a really hard time keeping track of the characters. This was crazy to me because I just read Sky in the Deep. There was a character named Espen and I was thinking... should I know who that is? Who is that?!The best word I can describe for the tone of the first 2/3 of the book is...messy. It's told in dual POVs, which isn't a big deal- I read a lot of those. But it also time hops. Present day. Then 11 years ago. Then present day. Then three years ago. Then present day. Then 7 years ago. ...See what I mean? It just didn't work as well as it should've. World building still needed to happen because two additional tribes were introduced but the time jumps took away from the world building.There is a large plot point about Tova, our other main character, being hated. It was touched on numerous times and when I finished the book- I still thought that plot line fell flat for me. It didn't make sense to me this intense hatred and the reasoning behind it. The responsibility that Tova takes personally for this hatred never correlated for me.There's some insta-love in this book. I'm not a fan of insta-love personally, so this is a negative for me. The characters were supposed to be pulled together by fate. I wasn't feeling it myself.I sighed a lot while reading this book. I know- I'm telling you, most of the way through reading it- I was going to rate it 2 stars! (That's how much the last bits of the books paid off!)The things I adored about Elyn in Sky in the Deep were missing from this one. Tova and Elyn were so different from each other. So was Halvard. So this viking/warrior vibe that I adored in the first book - was not present in this one. Tova literally begs not to be killed and curls up in a ball, covering her head for protection. I'm not expecting the characters to be the same, for sure. But this was one of my favorite aspects of Sky in the Deep, so it was disappointingly lacking in this book.Ready for my last gripe? The cover of this book is epic. I mean I LOVE it. But alas, it was misleading. Tova has her arrows taken away very early on. I made a note that at page 238- we have barely encountered her with her arrows. I felt like she was gonna be a little more like Legolas with the cover of the book...and that just wasn't the case.
Do: sign up for a self defense class. Why not feel empowered?!Listen: What I believe from the Wonder Woman soundtrackDrink: water- something about fighting scenes makes me want to stay hydrated