A review by halliemcd
The Girl the Sea Gave Back by Adrienne Young

3.0

I loved the first book, but this one didn't really do it for me. I loved Tova's character, but there were many elements of this that just fell flat. It was written well, just like the first one. Unlike the first one, however, there were two characters narrating, plus flashbacks. We would read an event happening from one character's perspective, then we would hit rewind in the next chapter to see the same event happening from the other character's perspective. Even though this story takes place in the span of a few days, this means of storytelling really made things seem soooooo dragged out. It was very slow, and there were so many side characters and subplots that meant the focus wasn't so much on the interaction between Tova and Halvard. And then it's all like oh yeah, fate, we are meant to be together. In the first book, it was just Eelyn narrating. When she left Hylli we didn't flash back to focus on her father or her friend. It was just her and Iri and Fiske and his family. Others in the village appeared somewhat throughout the story. That was much more manageable and I felt very connected to Eelyn and Fiske and Iri's story because of it. I still love Adrienne Young's writing, but I couldn't connect with this one as well as I did with the first.