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A review by mallard_duck
The Goddess of Nothing At All by Cat Rector
1.0
Ten years ago, I probably would have loved this book.
But I read it now, so (unfortunately) I didn’t.
You know that bit of cognitive dissonance when you read a YA novel and all the characters who are described to be teenagers (clearly just for reliability factor) act, talk, and think like adults? (Looking at you, Leigh Bardugo.) This book is the opposite: we know that the characters are tens or even hundreds of years old (they are, after all, gods), but the way they‘re portrayed (for about two-thirds of the book, at least) just makes me imagine a bunch of 17-22 year olds. Now, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially if the author’s aiming for a slightly younger fanbase. But…
I’m going to preface the rest of this review by saying that I don’t think this is a bad book; it’s not. Objectively speaking, it’s not terribly written or anything. (Not the best, but also not the worst, and nothing that can’t be made better with practice.) This rating reflects my personal enjoyment of it. More than once I considered putting it back on the shelf; I powered through because writing a review of a book I hadn’t finished reading would have felt unfair. Plus, halfway through I went back to Goodreads to skim over the other reviews - and I kept asking myself, what am I missing? Maybe the other half will be as phenomenal as the reviews make it out to be?
A tl;dr from me: sure, give The Goddess of Nothing At All a try (clearly, there are plenty of people who liked it well enough), but check your expectations first. For me, there were two things that drew me in: the fact that this is based on mythology (not that I’m an expert on these topics, but I do love Loki) and the promise of LGBT+ themes. I mean, queer people AND myths? Count me in! RIght? Well… Yeah, here’s where the rest of my expectations come in.
What I wanted: a riveting story full of complex, multi-faceted characters. Depth and moral dilemmas. Witty banter. Some truly epic storylines to make the Ragnarok plot both tragic and fascinating. Queerness, and because of that queer label, some nice, non-heteronormative character dynamics.
What I got: sadly, none of the above, or little enough of it that it feels like none. Most of the characters come off very… flat; I think this is always a danger when you choose to go with first-person narration where the entire thing is written from the same character’s perspective. It can be done well, I suppose - when an author truly follows the show, don’t tell principle, we don’t necessarily need to know the other characters’ every thought to see the depth in them. Unfortunately, the gods shown through Sigyn’s eyes feel rather one dimensional. We’ve got Freya, the typical beautiful mean girl; Odin, the annoying (and also mean) dad who never explains anything; Sif, another beautiful mean girl; Thor, whom I can only describe as a frat boy whose masculinity is so ridiculously fragile that putting on a dress for the purpose of retrieving his beloved Mjolnir makes him revert to the mindset of a six year old boy from a conservative family who’s still in his “girls have cooties” phase. If you noticed that I used “mean” to describe three different characters, that was intentional: nearly every character who isn’t Sigyn or Loki is your average high school bully. For a huge part of the book, there’s no nuance to it, just people saying mean things, often pointlessly, including (of course) being openly queerphobic. Then, on the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s Idunn - Sigyn and Loki’s #1 fangirl* (seriously, I’m pretty sure she was described as “squealing” at them at least once), who doesn’t show up that often, but when she does, she braids Loki’s hair and calls him “adorable”. (* Well - it is like this until it isn’t, but… spoilers.)
The romance… honestly, the premise was good. The God of Lies and the woman who stole their heart, an ominous prophecy, the looming threat of the End of Times, and a lie or two borne out of selfishness (or “love”)? Yet, many of those tropes fell flat to me; not to mention that the romance itself felt - yes - so very straight, even though one of the characters is technically genderfluid/not cis. (It’s mentioned two or three times in the book, and I definitely feel like it could have been more incorporated into the story; instead, it felt slightly token-y.) It starts off with Loki saving Sigyn from a (bit of a dumb) death, which then becomes (to some degree) a recurring theme throughout the book - that is, when she’s not patching him up. They really are that couple from a typical romcom, the “good girl falls for a bad boy and it turns out he’s just misunderstood and has a heart of gold and a tragic past” kind. That is, until things go awry, as they are bound to do. Loki and Sigyn separate (sort of), and quite frankly I’m still not sure if the way their relationship was described at that point was supposed to read as still-can’t-keep-our-hands-to-ourselves, true-love romantic, or if it was purposefully described as kinda toxic. I’m definitely leaning toward the latter. All in all, this entire relationship has a very… true love lasts forever, no matter what happens theme - a concept that can certainly be appealing, but also one I kind of grew out of. I can’t count the number of times I wanted to scream at Sigyn and be like: girl, this really isn’t worth it. Just move on.
That witty banter I was hoping for is just… for the lack of better word: immature, even juvenile at times (but, again, might very well be someone else’s cup of tea). An example:
“And yet that’s exactly what the prophecy says will happen at Ragnarok. Or are you feeling biased towards your kin?” Odin glared at Loki, who only flipped him an obscene gesture in return.
I sighed. “What’s your solution then?”
“I don’t have one. That’s why I summoned your irritating shadow.” He flicked a hand toward Loki, as dismissive as could be.
And then, about two thirds into the book, I figured out the second reason why I simply wasn’t vibing with it: it might as well be taking place in the modern world. No, hear me out. See, if you take away the magic and the fact that there’s no electricity and such, the characters could be put in modern day NYC or any other city and still act more or less the same (okay, maybe without the excessive torture). The same toxic masculinity, the same dilemmas of being gay in a queerphobic society… Váli’s coming out scene is probably happening in someone’s actual kitchen right now. And maybe that’s good. Maybe it’s relatable; maybe this is exactly what some readers want: to read about what they know, about their own experiences dressed up in generic fantasy. Once again, my reception of it comes down to my personal expectations. I mean, you have an entire mythical world to explore; all these mystical, sometimes even magic-wielding characters who have been alive for tens or hundreds of years, and you just… project modern society on them? Instead of, say, exploring how gender and sexuality could possibly exist differently in that setting? I would have been much more excited to read about the latter.
Last but not least, the ending. Frankly, I found the last 50-60 pages of the book more tolerable; it was a bit more action heavy, plus Loki got less direct “screen time”, so many of the themes that irritated me just weren’t present. The ending also opens up a possibility of a sequel, which is nice, and the setup could make for an interesting follow-up book - I know there is a second book, so perhaps… I’m a little curious how that went, though I won’t be checking out the sequel at this point.
To sum it up: yes, this is all obviously very subjective. Even re-reading what I wrote here, I realize that my biggest gripe with The Goddess of Nothing At All is that it’s just not “mature” enough for me (in terms of complexity and language, not themes), which, frankly, is a preference, not some objective measure of value. The tropes have the potential to make a great story; personally, I simply found the execution to be lacking.
But I read it now, so (unfortunately) I didn’t.
You know that bit of cognitive dissonance when you read a YA novel and all the characters who are described to be teenagers (clearly just for reliability factor) act, talk, and think like adults? (Looking at you, Leigh Bardugo.) This book is the opposite: we know that the characters are tens or even hundreds of years old (they are, after all, gods), but the way they‘re portrayed (for about two-thirds of the book, at least) just makes me imagine a bunch of 17-22 year olds. Now, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially if the author’s aiming for a slightly younger fanbase. But…
I’m going to preface the rest of this review by saying that I don’t think this is a bad book; it’s not. Objectively speaking, it’s not terribly written or anything. (Not the best, but also not the worst, and nothing that can’t be made better with practice.) This rating reflects my personal enjoyment of it. More than once I considered putting it back on the shelf; I powered through because writing a review of a book I hadn’t finished reading would have felt unfair. Plus, halfway through I went back to Goodreads to skim over the other reviews - and I kept asking myself, what am I missing? Maybe the other half will be as phenomenal as the reviews make it out to be?
A tl;dr from me: sure, give The Goddess of Nothing At All a try (clearly, there are plenty of people who liked it well enough), but check your expectations first. For me, there were two things that drew me in: the fact that this is based on mythology (not that I’m an expert on these topics, but I do love Loki) and the promise of LGBT+ themes. I mean, queer people AND myths? Count me in! RIght? Well… Yeah, here’s where the rest of my expectations come in.
What I wanted: a riveting story full of complex, multi-faceted characters. Depth and moral dilemmas. Witty banter. Some truly epic storylines to make the Ragnarok plot both tragic and fascinating. Queerness, and because of that queer label, some nice, non-heteronormative character dynamics.
What I got: sadly, none of the above, or little enough of it that it feels like none. Most of the characters come off very… flat; I think this is always a danger when you choose to go with first-person narration where the entire thing is written from the same character’s perspective. It can be done well, I suppose - when an author truly follows the show, don’t tell principle, we don’t necessarily need to know the other characters’ every thought to see the depth in them. Unfortunately, the gods shown through Sigyn’s eyes feel rather one dimensional. We’ve got Freya, the typical beautiful mean girl; Odin, the annoying (and also mean) dad who never explains anything; Sif, another beautiful mean girl; Thor, whom I can only describe as a frat boy whose masculinity is so ridiculously fragile that putting on a dress for the purpose of retrieving his beloved Mjolnir makes him revert to the mindset of a six year old boy from a conservative family who’s still in his “girls have cooties” phase. If you noticed that I used “mean” to describe three different characters, that was intentional: nearly every character who isn’t Sigyn or Loki is your average high school bully. For a huge part of the book, there’s no nuance to it, just people saying mean things, often pointlessly, including (of course) being openly queerphobic. Then, on the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s Idunn - Sigyn and Loki’s #1 fangirl* (seriously, I’m pretty sure she was described as “squealing” at them at least once), who doesn’t show up that often, but when she does, she braids Loki’s hair and calls him “adorable”. (* Well - it is like this until it isn’t, but… spoilers.)
The romance… honestly, the premise was good. The God of Lies and the woman who stole their heart, an ominous prophecy, the looming threat of the End of Times, and a lie or two borne out of selfishness (or “love”)? Yet, many of those tropes fell flat to me; not to mention that the romance itself felt - yes - so very straight, even though one of the characters is technically genderfluid/not cis. (It’s mentioned two or three times in the book, and I definitely feel like it could have been more incorporated into the story; instead, it felt slightly token-y.) It starts off with Loki saving Sigyn from a (bit of a dumb) death, which then becomes (to some degree) a recurring theme throughout the book - that is, when she’s not patching him up. They really are that couple from a typical romcom, the “good girl falls for a bad boy and it turns out he’s just misunderstood and has a heart of gold and a tragic past” kind. That is, until things go awry, as they are bound to do. Loki and Sigyn separate (sort of), and quite frankly I’m still not sure if the way their relationship was described at that point was supposed to read as still-can’t-keep-our-hands-to-ourselves, true-love romantic, or if it was purposefully described as kinda toxic. I’m definitely leaning toward the latter. All in all, this entire relationship has a very… true love lasts forever, no matter what happens theme - a concept that can certainly be appealing, but also one I kind of grew out of. I can’t count the number of times I wanted to scream at Sigyn and be like: girl, this really isn’t worth it. Just move on.
That witty banter I was hoping for is just… for the lack of better word: immature, even juvenile at times (but, again, might very well be someone else’s cup of tea). An example:
“And yet that’s exactly what the prophecy says will happen at Ragnarok. Or are you feeling biased towards your kin?” Odin glared at Loki, who only flipped him an obscene gesture in return.
I sighed. “What’s your solution then?”
“I don’t have one. That’s why I summoned your irritating shadow.” He flicked a hand toward Loki, as dismissive as could be.
And then, about two thirds into the book, I figured out the second reason why I simply wasn’t vibing with it: it might as well be taking place in the modern world. No, hear me out. See, if you take away the magic and the fact that there’s no electricity and such, the characters could be put in modern day NYC or any other city and still act more or less the same (okay, maybe without the excessive torture). The same toxic masculinity, the same dilemmas of being gay in a queerphobic society… Váli’s coming out scene is probably happening in someone’s actual kitchen right now. And maybe that’s good. Maybe it’s relatable; maybe this is exactly what some readers want: to read about what they know, about their own experiences dressed up in generic fantasy. Once again, my reception of it comes down to my personal expectations. I mean, you have an entire mythical world to explore; all these mystical, sometimes even magic-wielding characters who have been alive for tens or hundreds of years, and you just… project modern society on them? Instead of, say, exploring how gender and sexuality could possibly exist differently in that setting? I would have been much more excited to read about the latter.
Last but not least, the ending. Frankly, I found the last 50-60 pages of the book more tolerable; it was a bit more action heavy, plus Loki got less direct “screen time”, so many of the themes that irritated me just weren’t present. The ending also opens up a possibility of a sequel, which is nice, and the setup could make for an interesting follow-up book - I know there is a second book, so perhaps… I’m a little curious how that went, though I won’t be checking out the sequel at this point.
To sum it up: yes, this is all obviously very subjective. Even re-reading what I wrote here, I realize that my biggest gripe with The Goddess of Nothing At All is that it’s just not “mature” enough for me (in terms of complexity and language, not themes), which, frankly, is a preference, not some objective measure of value. The tropes have the potential to make a great story; personally, I simply found the execution to be lacking.