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jordanian_reads_'s review against another edition
5.0
Dramatic, taboo, and elemental— First Comes Summer’s story of two unnaturally close siblings in a remote Viking settlement transfixed me. The prose of author Maria Hesselager and translator Martin Aitken was gorgeous and atmospheric, especially in its descriptions of nature and its importance to Norse life. This is a tale of obsession, but it’s also an introspective character study that touches on frailty, mortality, community, and what it means to live a good life.
I found the novel’s Norse setting extremely compelling. I loved the glimpses Hesselager gave us into Viking life: the raids, the responsibilities of a midwife, the celebrations, the mythology, and the first introduction of Christianity. In this way, First Comes Summer reminded me a lot of Nicola Griffith’s Hild (one of my favorite books).
If you can deal with the unnaturally close sibling relationship, I highly recommend this novel to all my fellow translated lit and historical fiction fans! A huge thank you to Riverhead for the galley – First Comes Summer is out today!
I found the novel’s Norse setting extremely compelling. I loved the glimpses Hesselager gave us into Viking life: the raids, the responsibilities of a midwife, the celebrations, the mythology, and the first introduction of Christianity. In this way, First Comes Summer reminded me a lot of Nicola Griffith’s Hild (one of my favorite books).
If you can deal with the unnaturally close sibling relationship, I highly recommend this novel to all my fellow translated lit and historical fiction fans! A huge thank you to Riverhead for the galley – First Comes Summer is out today!
butterflies_library's review against another edition
4.0
This is not a book I would typically reach for but it intrigued me being a psychological and mystical novel. It took me a second to get into due to the translation, but I hit a point where I couldn’t put it down! It was so unpredictable. But it is true when some people will do absolutely anything for the ones they love. Jealous can make people do crazy things. The change of POV and timeline through out the book I really enjoyed and appreciated. I highly recommend, but this also may not be a book everyone will enjoy. Over all, I give this book a 4/5 as a bit deducted because of at time the translation was a bit hard to follow.
Thank you RiverHead for the ARC. Review is all my honest feedback and options #FirstComesSummer #NetGalley
Thank you RiverHead for the ARC. Review is all my honest feedback and options #FirstComesSummer #NetGalley
birchmezz's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
fieldofhats's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
The first half of this book is an easy 4/5 stars. It’s atmospheric, beautiful, and intriguing. I love the way it plays with the themes of taboo, betrayal, and religion, and there’s just enough creepy elements to keep one on their toes. Much of this review, unless stated otherwise, deals with this first half. The second half of the book is a 1.5/5 stars. Most of it feels incredibly unnecessary and jarring, likely due to the fact that the main character is dead. I don’t like it when the character we’ve been following dies out of the blue, it feels like a betrayal. And on top of that, the perspective we do get is not anywhere near as interesting as Folkví’s. It’s all around disappointing. Also, I listened to the audiobook which was amazing, but apparently the written copy doesn’t have dialogue tags??? This is probably my biggest pet peeve with adult literary fiction, it’s unnecessary and pretentious and awful. Both ratings would have been one star higher if it weren’t for that.
The main theme of this book is confronting taboos. The premise is an incestual relationship which Hesselager uses to analyze other taboo acts. There’s one scene between the siblings with dubious consent, for example. But what really interest me is the way the book makes you think about love. If we accept the premise, that these siblings are in love with each other, it paints Áslakr in a rather unfavorable light because when he insists that Folkví is in the wrong for loving him even though he clearly loves her too. She was willing to leave her partner for him, but he wouldn’t do the same. Hypocrisy and betrayal aren’t taboo, but they are morally corrupt. Hesselager uses the taboo situation to explore moral corruptness in a way the audience has never thought of it before.
Except that this theme is undermined at the end of the novelwhen Folkví kills Gerd and takes over her body to be with her brother? Or something? I didn’t really follow the last chapter, but if that is what happened it seems to be portraying Folkví as more morally corrupt than Áslakr, which feels wrong. It feels wrong because Folkví seems like the victim of this story — and seeing her do what she did feels a little like victim blaming. I don’t know, it just doesn’t sit right with me.
The way that Maria Hesselager writes about the human body is incredibly interesting to me. The portrayal of bodies is raw and unpolished, but on full display. She doesn’t shy away from the uncomfortableness that’s usually associated with speaking openly about the body, which makes for a book that isn’t afraid to question our perceptions of the natural world no matter how scared we are to do it. With the intimacy of the body comes some scenes that truly are bizarre and uncomfortable, though.In one in particular, Folkví has a dream about a tree sprouting from her foot… and it’s grotesque and weird and altogether unpleasant. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be in the book, but it does go a step further in challenging what we’re comfortable with. It plays into the theme of taboo, one that’s especially present throughout the book, and the theme of magic so it makes perfect sense. But still. Ick.
Folkví is a Volva, or a sorcerer, and the way that magic is presented is really good, I think. This isn’t a fantasy book, but magic is present; it’s the magic of the old Pagan tradition, represented through song, nature, and dreams/visions. I love it when Viking media does this not only because not many fictional stories about the Old Norse people do, but also because it puts the focus on Paganistic practices rather than christianized philosophies.
I think the broader theme of religion could be developed more as well. It’s clear that the author has made Folkví’s cultural religion the truth of the book, and so it would have been fascinating to see her interact with christianity more. There’s one really good chapter on it, but that’s it. Perhaps instead of spending a third of the book with Áslakr, Hesselager could have focused on this.
The problem with adult literary fiction is that it’s always trying to be a classic. It’s trying to emulate what the classics did, not so much in tone or action, but in the writing itself. Lit fic authors are always “pushing boundaries” or doing something “revolutionary”. This often translates to favoring theme over everything — the themes have to be set up right and have to say something meaningful. Characters often come second, and plot third. I love theme, but a good author doesn’t need to sacrifice other elements for it. They also don’t need to create something revolutionary to be a good story. That’s why I hate adult lit fic. Essentially, it’s pretentious, most of it at least. In some ways, First Comes Summer is a step above most of its contemporaries; it still has the ever-pretentious lack of dialogue tags, but its story and characters are much more interesting and tie very directly into the main themes of the novel. Hesselager pretty much throws all that away after the first half, though.
I wish that the main character didn’t die halfway through. I understand why she did; to progress the themes of the book and make them more poignant. Folkví was quite literally sacrificed for the sake of thematic completion. What makes this worse is that we witness the story from Áslakr’s perspective for most of the second half, a character whose perspective I didn’t care to witness the story through. I think switching to his perspective briefly after her death makes sense, but not for as long as we do. His perspective lasts about two of the five hour audiobook, and it could easily have been cut to one hour. Hesselager could have explored much more interesting themes (like religion) in the remaining hour.
Overall, I’m not sure this was worth it. It was undoubtedly weird and grotesque, but there’s no payoff or reason. There are themes, but they’re just left hanging. I went in mostly blind, having just heard the premise from a Tiktok recommending weird books, but I was expecting more bizarre weird and less bad weird. It’s definitely a mix of both, but the bad weird definitely overshadows the bizarre weird.
The main theme of this book is confronting taboos. The premise is an incestual relationship which Hesselager uses to analyze other taboo acts. There’s one scene between the siblings with dubious consent, for example. But what really interest me is the way the book makes you think about love. If we accept the premise, that these siblings are in love with each other, it paints Áslakr in a rather unfavorable light because when he insists that Folkví is in the wrong for loving him even though he clearly loves her too. She was willing to leave her partner for him, but he wouldn’t do the same. Hypocrisy and betrayal aren’t taboo, but they are morally corrupt. Hesselager uses the taboo situation to explore moral corruptness in a way the audience has never thought of it before.
Except that this theme is undermined at the end of the novel
The way that Maria Hesselager writes about the human body is incredibly interesting to me. The portrayal of bodies is raw and unpolished, but on full display. She doesn’t shy away from the uncomfortableness that’s usually associated with speaking openly about the body, which makes for a book that isn’t afraid to question our perceptions of the natural world no matter how scared we are to do it. With the intimacy of the body comes some scenes that truly are bizarre and uncomfortable, though.
Folkví is a Volva, or a sorcerer, and the way that magic is presented is really good, I think. This isn’t a fantasy book, but magic is present; it’s the magic of the old Pagan tradition, represented through song, nature, and dreams/visions. I love it when Viking media does this not only because not many fictional stories about the Old Norse people do, but also because it puts the focus on Paganistic practices rather than christianized philosophies.
I think the broader theme of religion could be developed more as well. It’s clear that the author has made Folkví’s cultural religion the truth of the book, and so it would have been fascinating to see her interact with christianity more. There’s one really good chapter on it, but that’s it. Perhaps instead of spending a third of the book with Áslakr, Hesselager could have focused on this.
The problem with adult literary fiction is that it’s always trying to be a classic. It’s trying to emulate what the classics did, not so much in tone or action, but in the writing itself. Lit fic authors are always “pushing boundaries” or doing something “revolutionary”. This often translates to favoring theme over everything — the themes have to be set up right and have to say something meaningful. Characters often come second, and plot third. I love theme, but a good author doesn’t need to sacrifice other elements for it. They also don’t need to create something revolutionary to be a good story. That’s why I hate adult lit fic. Essentially, it’s pretentious, most of it at least. In some ways, First Comes Summer is a step above most of its contemporaries; it still has the ever-pretentious lack of dialogue tags, but its story and characters are much more interesting and tie very directly into the main themes of the novel. Hesselager pretty much throws all that away after the first half, though.
Overall, I’m not sure this was worth it. It was undoubtedly weird and grotesque, but there’s no payoff or reason. There are themes, but they’re just left hanging. I went in mostly blind, having just heard the premise from a Tiktok recommending weird books, but I was expecting more bizarre weird and less bad weird. It’s definitely a mix of both, but the bad weird definitely overshadows the bizarre weird.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Grief, and Incest
Moderate: Sexual violence, Misogyny, Rape, Death of parent, Sexism, Slavery, and Suicide
Minor: Colonisation and Classism
bean_book's review against another edition
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
hannahkelley's review against another edition
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? Yes
3.0
virgilsaeneid's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
shrrawat's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
"First Comes Summer" is a mixture of folk horror and literary fiction. There is a lot of emphasis on symbolism, theming, and foreshadowing based on old Norse mythology, which as a global mythology buff, I appreciated.
I understand most of the negative reviews come from the story's inclusion of incest. But, considering one of the most popular literary series of the past decade also heavily featured incest (looking at you Game of Thrones), I find this aspect to be less problematic than others. This story is not meant to be a tragic love story between two siblings, but rather an examination of desperation and obsession gone to twisted extremes.
I understand most of the negative reviews come from the story's inclusion of incest. But, considering one of the most popular literary series of the past decade also heavily featured incest (looking at you Game of Thrones), I find this aspect to be less problematic than others. This story is not meant to be a tragic love story between two siblings, but rather an examination of desperation and obsession gone to twisted extremes.
notoriousesr's review against another edition
challenging
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Folkvi, a shaman in her small Viking settlement, loves her brother, Aslakr. No she really, REALLY loves her brother. So when he returns from an expedition betrothed to Gerd, she takes matters into her own hands.
Yeah, let’s get it out of the way. It’s incest. This is an incest book. We all know that going in. Anyway, as far as incest plotlines go, this one is pretty tame until the end, where there’s a “shocking twist.” However, I think that this would’ve benefitted from a restructure. First Comes Summer jumps around so much temporally that by the time I figured out when each thing was happening, the tension of the main narrative felt pretty slack. Hesselager made it harder on herself to keep the stakes high when we’re jumping from summer to winter to childhood to 20 years later BACK to summer, etc. etc. The prose is pretty good, and I like Aitken’s translation work in general, but it just felt kind of slow and rambling, especially for something that SHOULD have a propulsive narrative. Overall, 2.5 out of 5 flasks of mystery shaman liquid.