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lanko 's review for:
The Gospel of Loki
by Joanne M. Harris
Incredibly fun! Tore though it in 3 days!
Loki always has this big potential, and seeing him in first person was incredible.
The book isn't faultless - most of the gods are very over-simplified and others even done dirty, and not because of any unreliable narrator style. Some others are changed pretty drastically - now Loki and Angrboda are demons, thought they were Jotunn? Surtr is now a shadow dragon instead of a fire giant, and I couldn't not think he was just Deathwing now.
It also makes use of modern terms that for the most part weren't a problem... until you come across Loki pretty much mentioning the Premier League, heavy metal, his celebrity status and so on... sometimes it did make you stop dead on your tracks.
The golden part is definitely the first ~40%.
The middle part flows with some highs and lows. The author did make a good job of making this part, which mostly consists of the more episodic tales of the myth, greatly interweaved and serving as points of progression, but their very nature from the myths does make some much better than others.
Specially when a lot of it consisted of "some time later, X happened, some time later, they travelled to Y", while the beginning is very tight and with a very clear and natural progression line.
The final parts were a bit strange. It did take quite a dark, serious turn, but the take on the "main villain" was a new one for me.
Also, Sigyn. She was done dirty for most of the book, but her scene of undying loyalty being attributed to a combination of madness through grief, love and possessiveness was actually pretty bold, and I admit I actually liked it. Pretty much explains how one would be holding a bowl of poison for so much time... if only her character had been better in the rest of the story too...
But I just had too much FUN reading this, and it greatly outweighed any cons I might have had with it, and I'm not that petty to take points from that.
Loki always has this big potential, and seeing him in first person was incredible.
The book isn't faultless - most of the gods are very over-simplified and others even done dirty, and not because of any unreliable narrator style. Some others are changed pretty drastically - now Loki and Angrboda are demons, thought they were Jotunn? Surtr is now a shadow dragon instead of a fire giant, and I couldn't not think he was just Deathwing now.
It also makes use of modern terms that for the most part weren't a problem... until you come across Loki pretty much mentioning the Premier League, heavy metal, his celebrity status and so on... sometimes it did make you stop dead on your tracks.
The golden part is definitely the first ~40%.
The middle part flows with some highs and lows. The author did make a good job of making this part, which mostly consists of the more episodic tales of the myth, greatly interweaved and serving as points of progression, but their very nature from the myths does make some much better than others.
Specially when a lot of it consisted of "some time later, X happened, some time later, they travelled to Y", while the beginning is very tight and with a very clear and natural progression line.
The final parts were a bit strange. It did take quite a dark, serious turn, but the take on the "main villain" was a new one for me.
Also, Sigyn. She was done dirty for most of the book, but her scene of undying loyalty being attributed to a combination of madness through grief, love and possessiveness was actually pretty bold, and I admit I actually liked it. Pretty much explains how one would be holding a bowl of poison for so much time... if only her character had been better in the rest of the story too...
But I just had too much FUN reading this, and it greatly outweighed any cons I might have had with it, and I'm not that petty to take points from that.