Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young // The Good, Bad, & Ugly

Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young
Genres: Fantasy (YA)
Goodreads

OND ELDR. BREATHE FIRE.

Raised to be a warrior, seventeen-year-old Eelyn fights alongside her Aska clansmen in an ancient rivalry against the Riki clan. Her life is brutal but simple: fight and survive. Until the day she sees the impossible on the battlefield — her brother, fighting with the enemy — the brother she watched die five years ago.

Faced with her brother's betrayal, she must survive the winter in the mountains with the Riki, in a village where every neighbor is an enemy, every battle scar possibly one she delivered. But when the Riki village is raided by a ruthless clan thought to be a legend, Eelyn is even more desperate to get back to her beloved family.

She is given no choice but to trust Fiske, her brother’s friend, who sees her as a threat. They must do the impossible: unite the clans to fight together, or risk being slaughtered one by one. Driven by a love for her clan and her growing love for Fiske, Eelyn must confront her own definition of loyalty and family while daring to put her faith in the people she’s spent her life hating.

I’m pretty sure this will be an unpopular opinion on this one folks. It’s not that I didn’t like it, I just have some issues with it that make it not a 5-star read. This is lengthy (compared to my other reviews recently) so grab a drink and settle in.

THE GOOD

I really love Eelyn because I’m all about a badass viking chick that also has a soft side. I really enjoyed that Eelyn grew into a balanced character – because a girl can be both a warrior and still care about herself and others.

There are a couple of side characters I also liked – like Halvard (what a cutie). I also enjoyed the world. Even though I wanted a bit more, it was simple and easy to follow for a standalone book.

THE BAD

The romance doesn’t play a big role in this book – which is not the issue I have. The issue I have is that because it doesn’t play a big role, when it finally is addressed I felt like it was….just there to have romance? I didn’t feel it or see it throughout the novel and then suddenly bam it’s there. It wasn’t convincing. Honestly, the book could have succeeded without it. #allthesingleladies

The Herja were incredibly disappointing. These are the “bad guys” that are supposed to unite the clans. This might be considered spoiler-y because I’m about to talk about what I expected and what I interpreted. I expected the Herja to be these sort of mythical beings. This clan of otherworldly type baddies – almost like white walkers. What I interpreted from the descriptions and the final battle, was that they weren’t anything special. It was easy for them to capture and question one and they seemed just like any other man or woman. The final battle took up just a few pages and seemed way too easy. Ok, easy might not be the right word, how about it seemed like any other battle with another human clan. So, why were they so afraid of them? It seemed the only reason was because of their numbers. But maybe I missed something.

THE UGLY

My biggest issue was the rivalry between the Aska and Riki.  While I understand this book is about fictional clans inspired by vikings, when I went into it I was expecting something a little more true to viking culture. But for the sake of this review, let’s pretend they aren’t inspired by vikings at all – their rivalry doesn’t make strategical sense. A clash of clans (hehe) because of religion does make sense, but fighting every 5 years at the same spot then allowing your enemy to recuperate their supplies and numbers for 5 years then going back to fight at that same spot just does not make any sense.

Whether they are vikings or not, that just wouldn’t be how warring clans would do it.  Since that is the core of what this novel is built on, it really pulled me out of the story.

Another issue I had is a major plot spoiler, so if you haven’t read this book yet, skip the rest of this review.  I found the reason that Eelyn’s brother turned on his people was a bit extreme and not fleshed out really well. With this being a major plot point and a driving factor in a lot of Eelyn’s decisions, it also pulled me out of the story. I originally wrote a long paragraph but here are some bullet points instead:

• They don’t have healers that are as good as the Riki (according to the descriptions I read)
• They thought he was dead
• They don’t collect the dead bodies. Their practice is to leave them on the battlefield where they died.

So why was he such a sourpuss about it? Another issue with this is that his identity is known from the beginning to the Riki and he is eventually accepted into the Riki clan, yet when Eelyn comes in, they have to hide her identity. Seemed like a very convenient plot device to me.

Phew, okay, I honestly didn’t think I had that many issues with this book until I started writing this. So, I’m a little conflicted on what to rate it. Was it fun? Sure, sometimes. Was it worth the hype? I don’t know. So, chat about it with me!

Rating Report
Plot
Characters
Writing
Romance
Overall:	3 / 5