Valkyrie by Kate O'Hearn: it's an itty bitty review for an itty bitty book

Valkyrie 

by 

Kate O’Hearn

              Valkyries, the winged warrior women who chose the valiant of heart to go to Valhalla , are still operating. Now ancient Norse warriors, samurai, native American Indians and modern day Soldiers feast and party together in Valhalla. Freya, our protagonist, finds the whole thing ridiculous. Why? 

              She gives several different reasons from disliking humans in general (after all she’s been to every war in recent human history) to not feeling worthy to choose the valiant. Which doesn’t make much sense because she knows automatically who to reap and who to leave alone.

Anyway I know that his author is famous for her Pegasus series. I have a confession to make. I never actually read those. In my defense I did start it. During that phase I had where I started a bunch of books but never actually finished any of them. 

I maybe sorta kinda put it down.

Characters

Freya: She was a decent protagonist. Curious, Compassionate and kind . . . but only to certain people? She’s very black and white. After all she can see people’s hearts and knows when somebodies rotten. Yet you’d think that when a child came around with a rotten heart it’d be more like a hint of what was to come right? Maybe?

Orus: aww adorable little worrywart raven. Who nobody listens to! What the heck Y’all. His whole purpose  is to give sound advice! But let’s forget that, let’s just not listen to him.

Archie: darling that is a terrible name. Still he was sweet if a bit dense at times. Actually, when you think of it this author had a lot of strange names. Leo max. Tamika and Uniik. Dear me those are just awful.

Tamika and Uniik: Essentially Freya reaps a soldier who is worried about his girls Tamika and Uniik. Uniik was apparently born right after he signed onto the army so he didn’t even get to hold her which was the saddest part of this entire story. Freya promises him to check up on them despite the fact that she will have her wings torn off and her eyes gouged out if she gets involved on Midgard. 

( this is a kids book right?) 

Tamika and Uniik were kind of cute but they were more plot device than characters.

Likes

Norse mythology is great: I’m a mythology geek! Greek, Norse, Egyptian I’ve memorized quite a few of their myths and legends. Because I’m a nerd like that. Granted the book was probably closer to the movies than the actual myths but it was still cool to see. Especially the implementation of the Valkyries. The way they could tell what was in the heart of people was fascinating and I really wish I could see more of it.

For a middle grade read it was entertaining: I don’t really like judging books by the ‘intended audience’ because I really do believe that a good book can entertain anybody regardless of age. 

But . . . 

I have to admit that I probably would have liked this book better if I’d read it when I was twelve. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad book! Not at all! It’s just not a book that crosses ages very well. Maybe the suspension of disbelief was just too high.

Dislikes

The stakes were relatively low: Look the protagonist is a semi immortal warrior who’s been training for 600 years! Yet up until the very, very end the most conflict we get is from a couple of bullies? Sorry but it was kind of hard to worry about her. 

The most danger Freya was in was when she broke up a fight between police officers and drug dealers. Yet her armor protected her from the bullets. I don’t know guys it just seems like there should be some higher stakes in a book full of demigods.

(Sorry I couldn't resist)

Still it was decent. Did I expect it to be mostly about a Valkyrie going to school? No. did I think it was kind of silly to put a 600-year-old warrior into modern day public school? Yeah, a bit. But  I enjoyed reading it despite all that.