Book Review | Sky in the Deep & The Girl the Sea Gave Back

Sky in the Deep

Adrienne Young

352 Pages

2/5 Stars

Raised to be a warrior, seventeen-year-old Eelyn fights alongside her Aska clansmen in an ancient God-decreed rivalry against the Riki clan. Her life is brutal but simple: train to fight and fight to 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. 

Eelyn loses her focus and his captured. Now she must survive the winter in the mountains with the Riki, in a village where every neighbour is an enemy, every battle scar possibly one she delivered. But when the Riki village is raided by a ruthless clan settling in the valley, Eelyn is even more desperate to get back to her beloved Aska clan, which is rumoured to have been decimated by the same horde. 

She is given no choice but to trust Fiske, her brother's friend who tried to kill her the day she was captured. 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 find a way to forgive her brother while daring to put her faith in the people she's spent her life killing. 

"They hated me like I hated them. But they'd won. And they knew it."

Sky in the Deep sets itself up as an exciting, fast-paced, action-packed story set in the time of the Vikings. It follows Eelyn (1st person), a young warrior fighting for her clan (the Aska), first against the Riki and then against the Herja. Unfortunately, despite a promising start with a strong first chapter, the rest of the book ultimately falls flat.

For the main character, Eelyn was rather disappointing. She's presented as a strong, fierce heroine but she actually does very little towards proving this. Firstly, Eelyn never tries to escape the Riki; she settles into a life of cooking and cleaning too easily for someone who has hated these people her entire life. She also repeated claims throughout her time with the Riki that she could have killed someone this way or that way, but she never actually does anything towards this. Outside of this, she has very little personality and even less growth over the course of the book.

I actually have very little to say about the rest of the characters. Fiske was a bland love interest - there was nothing to bring him and Eelyn together. The other characters weren't really memorable and most of them lacked any kind of depth or personality. One thing that I liked at the beginning was the friendship between Eelyn and Myra, but it was forgotten as soon as Eelyn was taken by the Riki and only brought up again towards the end of the novel.

The plot of Sky in the Deep is fairly generic and doesn't really bring anything new to the table. It follows a strong heroine who falls for an aloof love interest while forging a bond with her long lost sibling as they work to bring their clans together. As the 'big bad' of the novel, the Herja aren't particularly interesting and are rather one-dimensional. It's never explained as to why they're attacking these clans or who they are.

The pacing of Sky in the Deep really didn't work for me. Once I got past the first chapter (a vivid and fast-paced battle scene), it became very slow. There was a lot of time spent on domestic Viking life and while that was interesting, it wasn't really what I signed up for. By the time we reached the ending, it felt rushed and very easy. The Riki and the Aska came together very quickly for two clans that have always been fighting.

One aspect of Sky in the Deep that I did like was the world building. I don't know very much about Vikings, but I feel like Young did do a lot of research. The world and language did feel and sound like old-Scandinavian and the style of warfare and the brutal violence resulted in what I felt was an accurate portrayal of Viking life. 

Overall, Sky in the Deep is an okay story. As I said in my wrap-up post, I was really disappointed with this novel. Other than the first chapter, it didn't seem to have any oomph and I found most of the story line boring and forgettable. I think it is safe to say, I will never read this again. 

The Girl the Sea Gave Back

Adrienne Young

352 Pages

2/5 Stars

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. 

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 in 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. 

"For more than ten years, I'd cast the runes to see the future of the Svell. Never had they looked like this."

The Girl the Sea Gave Back is Adrienne Young's second novel. It is the sequel to Sky in the Deep, although it takes place ten years later and follows Tova and Halvard (1st person) as they work to protect their clans. 

I found it really difficult to connect to Tova and Halvard; they didn't have much personality other than 'outcast' and 'reluctant leader'. There was little to no growth from either of them, they were almost devoid of emotion and I just wasn't interested in either of them at all. I think that the story would have been more enjoyable if you didn't have to repeat the same part of the story line each time the point of view switched. The only part of Tova's character I found interesting were her truthtongue abilities but they were hardly explored and were only used when needed to push the plot forward. 

There wasn't really much of a plot in The Girl the Sea Gave Back; similarly to Sky in the Deep, there's no real reason for anything to happen. A key example of this is that the Nadhir have been peaceful for ten years and Vigdis (the brother of the Svell clan's chief) decides to raid them for no reason. Then the Svell and the Nadhir meet to make amends, and Vigdis attacks them again, but for no reason. There just doesn't seem to be a point to this story at all and knowing that makes it all the more difficult to read. 

While the world building was good in Sky in the Deep, it is fairly minimal in The Girl the Sea Gave Back. It definitely relies on the reader having read Sky in the Deep first. The narrative generally falls flat and it does feel like more of a debut than Young's actual debut. One part of this story that I really didn't like was the ending. It's left very open with lots of unexplained feelings between Tova and Halvard. Despite the little romance in the book, it is heavily implied that Tova and Halvard are destined to be with each other despite only meeting three times over the course of the book (including the big battle). 

Overall, The Girl the Sea Gave Back was not a good read for me. It's a great depiction of Viking life, but overall lacks substance and oomph. My feelings on this novel are very much the same as they were for Sky in the Deep; it's a disappointing read and one I won't be returning to. It is safe to say, that I will not be picking up any more books in this series. 

Have you read Sky in the Deep or The Girl the Sea Gave Back? Tell me what you thought of these stories in the comments below. As always thanks for reading, and I'll see you in the next post.