Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - The Reckless Kind

This was an amazing book! I was looking up books with ace rep and qpr rep and this book just kept coming up for so many things! I finally read it this week after having it on my list for like eight months, my only regret is that I hadn't read it sooner(:

I would recommend to everyone but especially aro/ace, queer, deaf, or anxious people.

I wish they had gone into Erlend's anxiety more but I still felt seen by Fuglestad. Happy reading!

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quinnyquinnquinn's review

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adventurous emotional inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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ladygetslit's review

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adventurous emotional inspiring slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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celestriakle's review

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sad medium-paced

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

0.5

This book gets half a star for having good bones. I was so excited for this book: a queerplatonic throuple racing horses in a historical setting is a concept rich with material and interesting avenues to explore, and unfortunately, this book explores none of them. The author--an American--claims to have done much research, but it's anachronistic in jarring ways and does next to nothing with the setting. This book could have taken place anywhere in nearly any other pre-1950s decade and remained unchanged. (Worse, Norway was having a major historical event in 1904 that should have impacted these characters, but doesn't.) Characters are punished for having period-accurate morals. The main throuple rarely seems to even like each other, and all characters outside it are neglected, never receiving care or development.

In spite of promises that these are disabled characters who are more than their disability, characters are never allowed to grow beyond their disability and the book plays into terrible ableist tropes. In the most egregious case,

one of the major characters acquires paralysis of the legs in the first third, and he spends the entire book afterward begging for death, believing himself a burden, and pushing away everyone who loves him. The pinnacle of his "acceptance" culminates in a near torturous scene where he summons superhuman strength out of nowhere and literally drags himself through a freezing, rushing river in winter to rescue someone while the entire cast watches. He never comes to accept help from others.

Finally, it is CRUCIAL to know that this author runs a farm animal sanctuary. This attitude towards animals colors the entire novel, leading to all sorts of peculiar choices. Every single major characters ends up a vegetarian by the end of the novel. One otherwise-sympathetic character is villainized as soon as he reveals he eats rabbit for dinner. (And there is no mention at all of these characters' attitudes toward fish, which likely would have been a major part of these characters' diets.)

Asta becomes obsessed with a piglet she held for two minutes and the second half of the book centers on her pursuit of this piglet.

In the end, you're left with the very uncomfortable impression that these characters care more for animals than each other or anyone else, as interpersonal relationships and physical health are neglected and abandoned for the sake of the assorted animals in the book. By the end, it feels very much more like an aesop about how cruel humans are to animals than anything else.

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16_butterflies's review

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emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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leetorib's review

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adventurous challenging emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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cobwebshelves's review

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dark emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

"Maybe this is the nature of adulthood," Fuglestad considered. "Coffee and headaches. Parts that stop working."

Norway is very near and dear to me. I used to learn the language. It's still one of my dream countries to visit. So a historical fiction, set in Norway, with LGBTQ+ characters? That should've been perfect for me. So it broke my heart that I couldn't love it.

It's 1904, and the Fuglestad family is struck by tragedy. Two brothers, Gunnar and Fred, are severely injured in an accident. Their mother, Sigrid, dies. Gunnar's best friend Asta and boyfriend Erlend all come together to escape societal expectations and religious influences, to build a little family of their own and save Gunnar's home by finding a way to win the biggest event of the year - the Christmas horse race.

This book had some lovely moments of prose. It had sparks. The queer representation was lovely. The disabilities the characters live with don't magically disappear at the end. All these details I'm very appreciative of.

But for me, the pacing was the biggest problem. The first fifty pages are so fast you get a whiplash from everything that's happening. Then by the middle, it slows to a halt. And once you get to the final page, the epilogue feels like an afterthought.

I wish Gunnar had been a POV character. The back and forth between Asta and Erlend's POVs started to feel samey, especially when it stopped being Asta-Erlend and it was two or three chapters of just Asta-Asta-Asta in a row.

The side characters felt underdeveloped. I felt nothing for Mauritz or Oskar, or any of the names listed in the last paragraph. They were there to move the plot along, and I saw no true bond between them and the main trio.

The religious conflict got very uncomfortable at times, especially with the rampant homophobia that the townspeople shared.

Another reviewer I saw called it a trauma lasagna. And it really did feel like it. Tragedy after tragedy, in a very short amount of time, to the point where it got exhausting. I honestly feel that knowing from the getgo the kind of ending it'll have ruined it for me as well. At one point, during the race, one particular event that should've had emotional impact, only had me rolling my eyes. It could've done without the double physical injury for one person and the double concussion for the other. I know we all like torturing our characters sometimes, but that was a lot even by my standards.

There were good things in here. And it'll find its target audience. Unfortunately, it wasn't me.

Thank you to Soho Press and Netgalley for the early access.

Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Alcoholism, Blood, Body horror, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Grief, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Sexual content and Suicidal thoughts

"Maybe this is the nature of adulthood," Fuglestad considered. "Coffee and headaches. Parts that stop working." Norway is very near and dear to me. I used to learn the language. It's still one of my dream countries to visit. So a historical fiction, set in Norway, with LGBTQ+ characters? That should've been perfect for me. So it broke my heart that I couldn't love it. It's 1904, and the Fuglestad family is struck by tragedy. Two brothers, Gunnar and Fred, are severely injured in an accident. Their mother, Sigrid, dies. Gunnar's best friend Asta and boyfriend Erlend all come together to escape societal expectations and religious influences, to build a little family of their own and save Gunnar's home by finding a way to win the biggest event of the year - the Christmas horse race. This book had some lovely moments of prose. It had sparks. The queer representation was lovely. The disabilities the characters live with don't magically disappear at the end. All these details I'm very appreciative of. But for me, the pacing was the biggest problem. The first fifty pages are so fast you get a whiplash from everything that's happening. Then by the middle, it slows to a halt. And once you get to the final page, the epilogue feels like an afterthought. I wish Gunnar had been a POV character. The back and forth between Asta and Erlend's POVs started to feel samey, especially when it stopped being Asta-Erlend and it was two or three chapters of just Asta-Asta-Asta in a row. The side characters felt underdeveloped. I felt nothing for Mauritz or Oskar, or any of the names listed in the last paragraph. They were there to move the plot along, and I saw no true bond between them and the main trio. The religious conflict got very uncomfortable at times, especially with the rampant homophobia that the townspeople shared. Another reviewer I saw called it a trauma lasagna. And it really did feel like it. Tragedy after tragedy, in a very short amount of time, to the point where it got exhausting. I honestly feel that knowing from the getgo the kind of ending it'll have ruined it for me as well. At one point, during the race, one particular event that should've had emotional impact, only had me rolling my eyes.

It could've done without the double physical injury for one person and the double concussion for the other

. I know we all like torturing our characters sometimes, but that was a lot even by my standards. There were good things in here. And it'll find its target audience. Unfortunately, it wasn't me. Thank you to Soho Press and Netgalley for the early access.

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