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A review by justinethejellybean
When We Were Vikings by Andrew David MacDonald
1.0
I don’t often DNF a book, but I had to stop halfway through this one (I did read synopsis of the rest and browsed the last few chapters, which make me glad I stopped reading).
The writing in the first person was meant to put you in Zelda’s perspective, but its simplistic structure, over explaining of common terms, and intense repetition only annoyed me. I don’t know how many times I rolled my eyes or had to set the book down for a minute. It somehow felt like the reader was getting infantilized by the author rather than representing someone with different brain development.
The depiction of Zelda, as others already pointed out, also felt icky: how fast a woman with FADS mentions that she doesn’t have physical traits of the syndrome (so we have to know she’s hot), the constant talks of sex (consensual or not…), and how quirky she was depicted, all coming from a male author, felt exploitative. Did the author think about what he was writing or did any research? Even the Viking theme was all wrong: Zelda is obsessed with it and can literally speak ‘viking’ but calls it ‘Viking language’ rather than ‘Old Norse’? Really? That’s just contradictory characterization.
Even though the premise was interesting, it didn’t deliver.
The writing in the first person was meant to put you in Zelda’s perspective, but its simplistic structure, over explaining of common terms, and intense repetition only annoyed me. I don’t know how many times I rolled my eyes or had to set the book down for a minute. It somehow felt like the reader was getting infantilized by the author rather than representing someone with different brain development.
The depiction of Zelda, as others already pointed out, also felt icky: how fast a woman with FADS mentions that she doesn’t have physical traits of the syndrome (so we have to know she’s hot), the constant talks of sex (consensual or not…), and how quirky she was depicted, all coming from a male author, felt exploitative. Did the author think about what he was writing or did any research? Even the Viking theme was all wrong: Zelda is obsessed with it and can literally speak ‘viking’ but calls it ‘Viking language’ rather than ‘Old Norse’? Really? That’s just contradictory characterization.
Even though the premise was interesting, it didn’t deliver.