Book Review: Valkyrie Rising

As the inaugural post of my new, literary focused blog, I'm going to write a review of a YA fantasy novel - one of my favorite genres.

For those of you who have a Barnes and Noble account,  you may already know this,  but every Friday they have a free ebook. Most of the authors I've never heard of and, let's be honest, there's no probably a reason they're giving the books away for nothing. So in general I keep my expectations rather low. Yet every week I check,  just in case. Last week, as I prepared to head out on my final adventure in Europe before going home,  a YA fantasy book popped up as the free ebook that week. Even better it was about a girl going to Scandinavia - just like me! Even better it was written by an author from my home town - Minneapolis. It was destiny. With a few clicks it was mine.

Valkyrie Rising tells the story of Ellie, your average 16 year old who's been sent, with her brother Graham with the brother's best friend Tuck tagging along) to spend the summer with her grandmother in Norway - and not a cool place like Oslo, but a tiny fishing village in the middle of nowhere. Soon after Ellie arrives strange things start happening, all of which are connected to the disappearance of young men, and her grandmother clearly knows more than she's telling. When Graham and Tuck become endangered, Ellie is forced to take action.

As I already stated, I love YA fantasy. Because of this I was inclined to like this book - and I did. It has all the elements that so many popular YA novels have: a strong female protagonist whose struggling to define herself, a oh-so-sexy love interest (I feel a little dirty saying that about a character that's the same age as my students, but he's fictional, so it's okay), mysterious beings with magical powers, and exciting fight scenes. On top of that it's pretty well written, it's not going to win any prizes, but I didn't cringe at Paulson's descriptions and her character development is realistic. What's unique about this story is that it's set against a background and a set of mythologies that hasn't really been touched on much in YA fantasy. Everyone goes for the obvious Greek/Roman myths, werewolves, magicians and vampires if they are going to create a world around mythical and magical beings. 

Ellie is a likable character who, while stereotypically pretty but not popular, grows in a logical and believable manner during the book. What I really liked about her was her fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants attitude. Whenever she had to act she knew she was in over her head, but there wasn't another option, so she did something. A lot of the times she failed. Not the "heart wrenching" failure over the over-dramatic but the - "ah, shoot" that didn't work - variety The realistic nature of how Ellie deals with everything makes the supernatural element of the story more plausible. 

While I'm not sure if I'll buy the next book in the serious, I most likely will check it out of the library. I know, not a ringing endorsement. If you like YA fantasy, this is a great change of pace with still sticks with what we all love about the genre.