Book Review: Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young
Rating: 8.5/10
Hello and thank you for joining once again, I took a mental health week and the opportunity to deep clean my room. I also was incapacitated by migraines, but I’m back now and we’re back on track.
Today we are discussing a marvelous little gem of a book called Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young. The story takes place in a Viking inspired fantasy world and is populated by fantastic characters who you wish you could meet. Well no, they are as likely to throw an ax at you as they are to go along with that handshake. Which makes perfect sense for the world that Adrienne Young build. The story has some of my favorite elements, like enemies to lovers. Chosen one, found family. All those kinds of lovely things. So, Anna, I hear you ask, why didn’t you give it a higher rating. Well, gentle reader, I would have loved another hundred pages or so. Just to flush out certain elements of the story a little more. Explore some relationships. Little things like that. Don’t get me wrong, those things were still done very well, I just wanted more. I’m greedy, I always want more.
Our narrator is Eelyn, and she’s fantastic. She comes from the Aska clan, which is at war with the Riki clan and every five years or so they meet on a battlefield to ritualistically slaughter each other for their gods. Eelyn is one of the worriers on the battlefield when she sees her dead brother Iri. To say it’s a surprise would be an understatement. She last saw him five years ago on the bottom of a ravine with a massive wound. She had grieved for a long time. And then he stops an enemy Riki from killing her during the bottle, even though he’s fighting on the opposite side. Eelyn, we quickly find out does not like unanswered questions. She wants to know why she saw her dead brother and with that objective in mind goes looking for him on the battlefield once again. She finds him alright, but instead of getting killed her brother convinces his friend to take her captive instead.
Eelyn does not handle captivity well, her pride and her instincts all rebel against it. She is not an idiot however and realizes her best shot is to play along and figure things out before she commits to a course of action, whatever it may be. I do not understand Iri, and his choices when it comes to his sister and his father. If he loved them like he claimed he could have found a way to let them know. He didn’t even try, furthermore, he fought again his clansmen knowing perfectly well Eelyn and her father would be part of the fight. Then he figured the best way to protect his sister was to make her a slave. So I understand why Eelyn is pissed to high hell at him. I’d be too. Especially since Eelyn is a warrior, she is not accustomed to being meek, quiet, and obedient. She prefers hitting people with an ax.
I also loved Fiske, Iri’s adoptive brother, and his family. They are fabulous as well. Poor Eelyn is conflicted because she, as I said before, isn’t stupid and can see they are great people and she wouldn’t feel right destroying them. Fiske saved his enemy on the battlefield, because he realized how stupid the conflict was, and convinced his family to take that same enemy in and treat him like one of their own. That’s a real accomplishment considering the culture of the Riki and the Aska. They are raised with the belief that they need to kill each other every five years because that’s what their gods want. You cant see your enemy as people in that kind of environment. Not if you want to survive and be sane. So Fiske either has an enormous capacity for love or a rebellious streak. Or both. I chose to think both based on the evidence presented to me. Igne, the mother, and Halvard, the baby is the best too. She is a healer and is strong. She is strong on the inside, you just know that she might bend but she won’t break no matter what. It’s no wonder Eelyn is drawn to her. They are very much alike, only Eelyn is more likely to stab someone. Halvard is six, and as such has the clearest vision of how things actually are. He doesn’t let others make up his mind for him, and watching him stubbornly win Eelyn over was one of my favorite parts of the story. He was kind at a time she needed kindness, and because he was a child she could accept it.
The character growth in this book is fantastic. Eelyn has one of the best arcs ever. She even says so herself “I could still see a young Eelyn standing on the beach turned into the wind, a sword in one hand and an axe in the other. I hadn’t lost her. I hadn’t buried her. I’d only let her change into something new.” and her self evaluation is very accurate. She is still herself but a different version, a more understanding and open-minded version. This girl would never again blindly follow tradition or let others make up her mind for her. She makes up her own mind. She always felt inferior to her brother but in my opinion, she is far superior. She grows to love her Riki family, but she doesn’t betray or let go of the people of the Aska. That is not in her nature. Loyalty is at the core of her and she will do anything she can to stay loyal to those she loves no matter how difficult it is.
Finally, I want to talk about Eelyn’s and Fiske’s relationship. They are a definition of enemies to lovers, and I’m here for it. Would I have been happier if I had another hundred pages of it? Yes, but I will take the gold I get. I truly feel like they grew to respect and trust each other over the course of the book. I felt it when Fiske handed Eelyn weapons to protect his family. I felt it when Eelyn took him to the Aska stronghold and defended him against those she loved most. I felt it when she cried and he let her. I felt it when he took her to get her slave collar removed because he was not going to make her go home in one. I felt it when she refused to ask him to move away from his home but he offered anyway. These people are so perfect for each other. I wanted more! I always want more of amazing relationships. They give me hope for humanity.
All in all this book was fantastic. I really loved it. I read it in about four hours because my brain likes to make me suffer, and it was over too quickly. But they were fantastic four hours and I wish i could enjoy all the books I read to the same level. I highly recomend it to anyone who likes adventure, Vikings, strong heroines (not just physically), great relationships, complex family dynamics, and just overall wonderful stories.
That’s it for today, until next time,
Qnd Eldr, Breathe FIre
Anna
