Reviews

Cold Coast by Robyn Mundy

arose93's review

inspiring reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

akane's review

informative reflective relaxing slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

katyoctober's review

5.0

I just loved this deeply involved novel so much! So highly recommend! Historical, geographical, adventure fiction. Robyn Mundy must be an awesome person to know! And Wanny!

nina_reads_books's review

4.0

Cold Coast by Robyn Mundy is inspired by the real life story of a young widow Wanny Woldstad, who in 1932 convinces trapper Anders Sæterdal to let her become his trapping partner for a season in Svalbard, Norway. Trapping was a wholly male domain and Wanny as the first woman to ever want to do it has to fight hard to prove her worth. Together they hunt polar bears and Arctic fox during a long dark winter.

This was an entirely different read for me. Trapping on remote land in Norway with the descriptions of the landscape the animals and the sheer hard work to survive - not something I've ever read about before but it really held my attention.

My favourite aspect of the book was that the chapters about Wanny and Anders were interspersed with chapters about a female fox and her female kit who is the runt of the litter. These chapters told from an animal’s perspective reminded me of The Octopus and I and Robbie Arnott's books The Rain Heron and Flames. They were little peaks into an animal’s thoughts as they lived and survived in the wild landscape alongside the ever present threat of the trappers.

I found this book very easy to read and very evocative of the place (and time) in which it was set. However, you cannot escape the fact that the novel centres on a pair of trappers and the animals they kill for their meat or fur. It was though set in the 1930s and so is being true to that time period and echoes the real life of Wanny Woldstad. I would just caution that if you think descriptions of animals being killed in this way would bother you I'd avoid the book. While the descriptions are not particularly gruesome they are faithful to the reality of a trapper.

I enjoyed this as a very different type of historical fiction to one I’d normally pick up.

Thank you so much to @ultimopress for my #gifted copy of Cold Coast.

berndm's review

3.0

Having read and loved Robyn Mundy’s earlier books, I was really excited when this one came out. Skilled and beautiful writing - in this it does not disappoint. Ultimately, though, I could not bring myself to care too much about the characters or the plot in this story. Not the book’s fault - I guess, it just wasn’t for me. Still looking forward to Robyn Mundy’s next book…

tricia65's review

adventurous inspiring medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

iphigenie72's review

adventurous dark informative slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

numbat's review

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

An adventurous account of the first woman trapper in the arctic in the 1930s. Based on real events, there is as usual with this kind of story some liberties taken to make it more interesting. I enjoyed the passages from the animals point of view.

justineharvey's review

adventurous inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

kidgloves's review

5.0

This is a great story, well-told. Mundy has done a terrific job of rendering the small artic archipelago of Svalbard in the 1930s and reimagining the debut season of its first female trapper. She clearly evokes how beautiful and desolate, but also how dangerous, this environment would have been and the harsh life of an artic trapper. Mundy had a difficult challenge in making the central character, Wanny, likeable (working against the author here are a modern distaste for the fur trade and the seeming selfishness of a parent leaving behind two children—albeit teenagers—to pursue her dreams) but she nevertheless inhabits and humanises Wanny to the extent that she (the character) resembles both an accurate product of her era and also a pioneer of female emancipation. Mundy also did a great job in creating and sustaining the central relationship between Wanny and Anders—the dialogue exchanges were lovely and you could feel the tension of their relationship, largely confined as they were to a space barely big enough for a polar bear. As a personal taste, and with some notable exceptions, I don’t enjoy reading passages from an animal’s perspective; but I can recognise when it’s being done well, and Mundy never strays into sentimentality when she inhabits the animals that interact with our heroes. The ending is pretty spectacular, too—struck an excellent final note. All in all, this is a great read, displaying detail and passion that betrays extensive research and (in Mundy’s case) a personal affinity with Svalbard; one might even stretch this authorial affinity to include Wanny herself—while occupying different eras, it feels like author and subject might have been cut from the same cloth.