gillian0231 's review for:

The Gospel of Loki by Joanne M. Harris

3.5

adventurous dark emotional funny informative lighthearted reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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I don't really know what I expected from this book, but it's definitely not what I got. I didn't realize that it was basically just a retelling of the entire Norse mythology, which is probably my fault. Even so, once I realized that's what it was, it all fell really flat. I did appreciate that Harris chose to tell it all from Loki's POV in order to give everything some levity and sarcastic commentary, there were some points when this shtick got very annoying. For example, the amount of times "Yours Truly" was used by Loki to refer to himself was insane. By the hundredth time I read this I would get so irritated and want to put the book down. It was also a lot of telling a not showing. I was expected to see a lot of Norse myths actually played out, and while that did happen a few times, there were also many times where it was just "this happened, then this happened, then this god did this, then this demon did this, etc. etc.".
When we were shown what was happening, the book was actually pretty good. I know some reviews have bashed this book for not being accurate to Norse myths, but that's not really why I read this. I'm pretty unfamiliar with these myths so I thought it was all pretty entertaining storywise. Overall, I just wish the book was much more like it's highpoints, and while I didn't dislike it, it had the potential to be so much better.