Reviews with content warning for Blood - Norse Mythology

I'm not super familiar with Norse mythology in general so I picked this up to learn a bit more about it. The storytelling definitely was interesting and kept my attention for the most part. Neil's narration of the audiobook was very well done!! Selfishly I wanted at least 1 story about the Valkyries, and this focused more on the 'major players' in Norse mythology (Odin, Thor, Loki). From what I understand this is a more updated and accessible version of these myths, so worth a read if you're interested in this subject.

Totally did reinforce that Loki is my favorite tho ...

Content Warnings

queer_bookwyrm's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous informative reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

4 ⭐ CW: violence, torture, descriptions of blood and gore, murder

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman is is his way of compiling all the Norse stories he had access to, and rewriting them in a way modern readers can understand. He has also arranged the stories in some coherent order to create an overall narrative of the Norse Gods.

Gaiman explains at the beginning that a lot of stories about the Norse Gods are simply lost to time and oral tradition, so the stories only follow a handful of the gods, mostly Thor, Loki, Odin, Freya, and a few others.

I found this book to be extremely informative about the Norse God lore and the way the Norse understood our world and universe. These stories set the foundation for so many fantasy stories. Gaiman's comedic timing in this is perfect. I found myself chuckling regularly about Thor and Loki's antics.

Basically, Loki is ridiculous no matter who tells the story, Thor is the biggest himbo, Freya is tired of all the bullshit with people trying to constantly marry her off, and Fenris Wolf deserved better (especially from Tyr).

Content Warnings

charliekjg86's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous funny lighthearted slow-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

yrlaevelyn's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark funny informative mysterious reflective tense

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

4.5

Content Warnings

danny_fox's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous informative inspiring relaxing fast-paced

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

5.0

This book was a delight from start to finish.

I don't know how accurate and true to the cannon these stories are (since this is pretty much my first introduction to Norse Mythology), but I still found it to be super enjoyable and interesting. Besides, I feel like retellings of stories from old mythologies don't need to stick that much to the "cannon", because their whole point is to be retold and see how each person will tell differently the same story.

Normally, I do my reviews by pointing out 3 things I liked and disliked about a book, but since these stories weren't made up and created by Neil, I can only judge it based on its writing style, which I had no issue with.

Instead, I'll separate it like this:

- The stories were super fun.
I found them all to be super interesting and the end even made feel quite upset. This book certainly got me into Norse Mythology.

-The writing style is simple, but in a good way.
I saw that a lot of people find Neil's writing style to be boring. Although, I understand why that is so, I find his more simplistic and not as crazy descriptive writing style to be very relaxing and easy to read. I could see everything in my head really clearly and I didn't feel bored at any point.
But I think it all just comes down to personal preference.

- The way Neil retells these stories is really fun.
The book made me laugh out loud a couple of times and it also made me feel really sad and bad for the characters. As I mentioned this before, the writing was nice enough that I could see everything clearly enough in my head, so I was really invested into this book.

- I don't think there is anything I didn't like about the book.
Again, I don't know how accurate it is to the original sources (and I honestly don't care), and writing style might not be to your liking if you are more into really detailed and descriptive styles. I think it just depends on the person. For me, I didn't have any issues with neither of these things.

Final thoughts:

If you like Norse Mythology or want to learn more about it, I'd suggest reading this book. Before getting into Norse Mythology, I only really knew stuff about Greek Mythology, which books that I read about I found to be a lot more darker and upsetting. I was expecting this book to also make me quite uncomfortable at certain parts (old times were quite brutal and disturbing), but I didn't really have any of those issues. So, the book was just really fun for me. It's definitely a solid 5 ⭐ from me.

Content Warnings

rhm04's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark informative medium-paced

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

3.0

Content Warnings

emilyplun's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous fast-paced

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

4.25

Content Warnings

More...