Author: Ingrid Paulson
Publisher: Harper Collins
Rating: WARTY!
Not to be confused with Ana Meadows The Stolen Valkyrie: Rising Phoenix, in many ways this is a standard trope urban fantasy: a teen girl has powers of which she's initially unaware, no one will tell her anything even when it's to her and their best advantage to tell her, she has two guys in tow, she's separated from parental oversight and control, and so on. In one other way, it’s a bit different, because unlike far too many YA novels these days, it doesn’t feature werewolves, or vampires, or angels. That doesn't necessarily mean that it’s any good!
This novel is odd in that it features a kind of double-triangle. Sixteen-year-old Elsa Overholt is the main character, and her older brother Graham is in tow, not in an incestuous way, but in an overprotective way. His best friend Tucker (seriously) has had zero interest in her, but now is suddenly all over her, but also simultaneously backing away from her because of Graham. The "flirtation" between him and Elsa is so forced and fake as to be embarrassing if it were not so fingernails-on-a-chalk-board irritatingly cheesy.
Normally Graham has been the one protecting her from guys, but now it seems that she has to protect him from Valkyries. Given that Valkyries are creatures from Norse mythology who are supposed to scour battlefields and transport those who are worthy to Valhalla (kinda like the Islamic mythology of seventy virgins and whatever), their habit of picking up hot eighteen-year-olds in bars seems a bit like slumming, but those teen boys are never seen again.
So for part of her summer, Elsa gets to travel to grandma's house in Norway. Graham comes along too, and inexplicably, so does Tucker. Fortunately for Elsa, everyone in Norway speaks perfect English - even in a remote and tiny fishing village, so there's never as language problem. Elsa claims she speaks hardly any Norwegian and then goes on to show us what a foul liar she is by showing that she more or less understands every single thing anyone says in her vicinity, so there are never any language problems.
It's no spoiler - indeed it’s patently obvious from book title, blurb and first couple of chapters that Elsa is - what Elsa? - a Valkyrie, as is her grandmother, who won't tell Elsa a fricking thing. This is where we discover that Elsa is a complete and utter moron. She obsesses over getting her grandmother to tell her exactly what’s going on, yet the very first time her grandmother comes even close to doing so, Elsa bolts for the door the first chance she gets. Does she want to know or not? And why is the author writing this so badly? I guess Elsa can’t help us with that either!
There is no mystery here. The Valkyrie girls are abducting guys. That's obvious from the first time Elsa goes to a bar with second trope guy named Kjell (pronounced Chell with a hard 'ch'). Seriously? Two statuesque valkyries enter and mesmerize the whole bar, and try to pick up Kjell. Elsa saves him, and the two valkyries - as a professional courtesy if you can handle that, let her get away with it, recognizing Elsa as one of their own, and simply leave peaceably. Ri-ight! These women only take boys - the best, the strongest, and the smartest, we're told - but we’re not told what they do with them, and no police authority seems to have any interest whatsoever in doing their job, so already we're well beyond the realm of intelligent now.
This is when Elsa decides she will have to reverse the situation on her bother Graham by protecting him, but the day after he arrives, he goes out play soccer with Tucker, and Elsa refuses to go. Some guardian! Now the boys are here, however, Paulson starts pulling trope trick after trope trick out of the YA grab-bag of tired and tedious ruses (you know the one marked 'doggedly uninventive'?) to throw teen bodies together. We learn that trope Kjell is trope-stalking trope Elsa who's supposed to be this trope powerful being, yet who quite evidently needs trope rescuing by trope guys all the time, and who is blatantly manipulated time after time by Graham, Tucker, and Kjell into bending and giving in to doing things she doesn’t want to do. She's so pathetic and so completely the opposite of the image we’re expected to swallow here: tall, powerful, beautiful, driven, dedicated Valkyrie women.
About those Valkyries (actually, it's valkyrja (plural valkyrjur but we get none of that in this authentic tale...)! In reality (that is, in mythological reality, if that makes sense) a Valkyrie (which literally means one who chooses the dead) is a female who chooses which soldiers die in battle. Of those who do die, fifty percent are taken by the valkyrie to Valhalla for Odin to rule over. The other fifty percent ends up under Freya's supervision at Fólkvangr. valkyries are associated with ravens, but also with swans and horses. The valkyries are not solely the domain of Norse mythology, according to wikipedia. Old English references wælcyrge and wælcyrie which are thought to be similar beings.
Because those old Norse names are so obscure (and unpronounceable!), Paulson does not use them, but she also, it seems, fails to try and approximate them using more familiar names. All names mean something, and in particular, older names were simply names of real world objects and events. Rose is named after the flower, April is named after the month. Melissa is named after bees (or honey, I forget which). Some wonderful examples of Old Norse Valkyrie names from wikipedia are: Geirskögul, Göll, Göndul, Gunnr, Herfjötur, Hrist, Mist, Ráðgríð, Skeggjöld, Skögul, and Skuld.
These names also mean things, like shield-bearer and other suitably militaristic (or even peaceable) themes. It would not be that hard to find a name that's appropriately warrior-like, but which sounds more modern. Paulson chickens out and names one of her Valkyrie 'Astrid', which is ultimately from áss and fríðr, and which means 'god-beautiful'. That's hardly a fierce Valkyrie name as judged by the ancient names which were given to these beings! The only one of these which she does avail herself is Hildr, which she renders as Hilda - Elsa's grandmother's name.
Tucker is an Australian term for food, and Tuck is an old British term for it, which is funny because Paulson writes, on page 236, "While Tuck was in the kitchen, foraging for food…"The first problem which Paulson has here is that she's playing into the common misperception that valkyries were fierce warriors when in actual fact they were servants and serving girls, minions at best, in Norse mythology. The second problem is that even if we agree to gloss over this error and say, "Fine, let's go with your changes, and let's see where you take it", where she takes it is down entirely the wrong road. Instead of being a strong female character, Elsa persistently defers to others and she's constantly needy of Tucker, and at the mercy of others. Indeed, at one point, this loose-living and irresponsible guy Tucker takes charge and "trains" the Valkyrie! This tells us that Elsa is indeed a minion and not at all a fierce warrior, so either way this goes, Paulson gets it wrong. Even the cover artist agrees that Elsa isn’t ready for prime time since he puts a shadowy guy in the background ready to pick her up when she falls!
That's pretty much where I lost any hope for this novel, and indeed for Paulson herself if she couldn't see the damage she was doing to her main character by so completely subjugating her to this the trope 'love' interest. The novel was close enough to the end at that point, that I thought I should finish it just to see precisely what kind of a train-wreck it becomes, but this novel doesn't so much come off the rials as become subsumed by them.
I was so saddened that Paulson has taken what could have been a majorly kick-ass concept and main character, and has castrated the whole thing with the blunt knife of teen trope. She's taken a falcon and clipped its wings and tamed it. She's taken a wolf and put a collar on its neck and fluffy bootees on its feet and she wants us to buy it as a guard dog. That's why you've probably never heard of this novel, and that's why it’s gone nowhere. It has nothing to offer that four-score and teen other YA novels haven’t already spewed-up just as rankly.
Elsa and Tucker get to spend the night "together" in a hotel room, and Tucker lives up to his name - tucking her into bed like she's a child. I'm sorry, is this supposed to make me think it’s true love? The next day they go to a soccer game planning on yet again confronting Astrid. This would be what, the fourth ineffectual time? It’s just as ineffectual this time as the previous three ineffectual times. Here’s a serious problem: Astrid is abducting boys left, right, and center and in public, yet there's absolutely no police involvement whatsoever. When Graham is abducted, the very last thing in the world that Tucker and Elsa think of, is calling the police. They're morons. This novel is entirely unrealistic.
Here's further proof: before they go to the soccer game they spend the morning practicing shooting with a hand-gun which Tucker appropriated from Hilda's house, yet when they see Astrid taking a guy from the soccer stadium, they do nothing to stop her or confront her. At this point Elsa knows that to gain power she must defeat a Valkyrie or have one surrender to her, yet she fails to use the gun either to get Astrid to surrender or to simply take her out and end this. She's had this hammered into her head repeatedly: defeating a Valkyrie or having one surrender is the only way to increase one's own power (so much for a sisterhood!), yet she cannot get this into her thick skull no matter what. She's quite simply stupid.
This assessment is adequately confirmed when she abandons the gun for an old rusty sword she finds under the floorboards in her grandmother's house. Yeah: you had your under-aged, inexperienced ass handed to you four times, so now instead of shooting the bitch, finishing this once and for all, and getting your brother back, you're going to challenge the Über-warrior goddess to a sword fight! I guess she really doesn't care that much about her bro' after all. But who knows - new magical powers come out of her ass whenever she needs them, and they arrive without any trial, skill, or test, without build-up, training, or preamble, so why not? And about those powers? If she doesn’t become a Valkyrie until 18, from whence all this power and all these skills? It makes no sense. It’s all deus ex asinine.
Tucker is nothing but a waste of ink, tacked-on because (and with only a few much-admired and appreciated exceptions) YA writers in general don’t have the first clue how to create a female main character without making her a vestigial appendage of some trope guy. Here's how badly pervasive this is: I read one review of this novel where the reviewer said that they liked the fact that Tucker allowed Elsa to grow into her character - like she was Tucker's property and she must have his permission and indulgence before she can be all that she can be?! Maybe the reviewer didn’t mean it that way, but that's not the only time I've encountered that kind of mindset in a review - like girls are still nothing more than chattel and possessions of men. How much longer are female YA authors going to hobble their creations like this, and keep hammering this into their young and impressionable female readers that they're nothing without a guy? Criminal is what it is.
This story is so badly written that even though the valkyries have been seen repeatedly abducting guys, and Elsa hasn’t been seen doing that even once, and she has lost her own brother, this psycho moron Margit (obviously with emphasis on the last syllable) is obsessed with insulting Elsa, who never once kicks her ass or punches her out. That's the kind of worthless 'warrior' she is. She's a disgrace even to the fictional wuss of a valkyrie which Paulson has invented here. The absurd thing is that Margit then does a complete 180 and suddenly allies herself with Elsa after spewing nothing but hatred and invective the minute before. This writing is pathetic, amateur, and lacks all believability.
The really laughable thing is that Margit marshals the resources of her vigilante network: this is the worthless crew which has been romping around and maintaining radio contact with each other, and carrying guns, and which has never once stopped a Valkyrie abduction! Elsa plans on planting one of the vigilante's beacons on Astrid to track her to her lair (or is it layer cake?), but they already tried that and Elsa discovered that she couldn't follow her into the Norse realm because she's not yet a full Valkyrie. This rite of passage happens at eighteen for reasons unspecified, and at that point Elsa had not defeated a fellow Valkyrie, no had she had one surrender to her. In short, this is a waste of time and yet more bad writing, but Paulson pulls a easy win out of somewhere so Elsa can qualify. How convenient.
This novel is godawful trash, period.
