Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young

Hello everyone!

Little update for you all, yesterday morning (Monday), I had my wisdom teeth removed! I was kind of annoyed because Wonder Week started on Sunday and I wanted this one to be a great read-a-thon that I am able to actually complete (since I made it lol).

Luckily, I wasn’t too loopy from the sedation and was able to start and finish a book whilst on bed rest!

This novel is an ARC that I was incredibly lucky to receive from Raincoast Books, so thank you so much to them!

Let’s get right into the review!

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Release Date: April 24th, 2018
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Genre: Fantasy and YA

Plot:
Raised to be a warrior, seventeen-year-old Eelyn fights alongside her Aska clansmen in an ancient rivalry against the Riki clan. Her life is brutal but simple: fight and survive. Until the day she sees the impossible on the battlefield—her brother, fighting with the enemy—the brother she watched die five years ago.

Faced with her brother’s betrayal, she must survive the winter in the mountains with the Riki, in a village where every neighbor is an enemy, every battle scar possibly one she delivered. But when the Riki village is raided by a ruthless clan thought to be a legend, Eelyn is even more desperate to get back to her beloved family.

She is given no choice but to trust Fiske, her brother’s friend, who sees her as a threat. They must do the impossible: unite the clans to fight together, or risk being slaughtered one by one. Driven by a love for her clan and her growing love for Fiske, Eelyn must confront her own definition of loyalty and family while daring to put her faith in the people she’s spent her life hating.

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⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

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4.5/5

This novel was one that I knew I would be able to read quickly and generally enjoy, but I didn’t anticipate enjoying it this much! This novel felt like something that I hadn’t entirely read before, but also had some tropes that I’m sure everyone has encountered. I’m not going to mention the tropes in this review because I don’t want to potentially spoil anything for a future reader, but I’m sure you’ll catch them when you read this book.

Characters

The characters in this novel were so incredibly loveable. I didn’t really find a lot of them to very well developed, but that didn’t effect my enjoyment of reading about them much.

Eelyn was an incredible protagonist and I enjoyed reading from her perspective immensely. She was strong, badass, and fiercely loyal to her family and faith. Watching the growth that Eelyn went through throughout this novel was very interesting for me and it made me become very invested into the novel.

I’d just like to add that I also did enjoy the sexual tension between her and her love interest. It was entertaining to follow and just such a guilty pleasure love story. Super cute.

Writing

There isn’t much I would complain about this writing other than the previous mention about maybe developing the secondary character a bit more, as well as, more world building.

I understand that this novel is a stand alone (unfortunately) and it is pretty difficult to world build a lot for a standalone without making it 700+ pages, but I wished for just a bit more about the clans histories and the settings. I think that if this novel were to have companion novels, that’s something I would find incredibly useful.

Plot

The plot of this novel was pretty unique, in a way. I mentioned above that you do meet some tropes within this novel, but other than those I found that I hadn’t met something like this novel before.

I enjoyed the Viking aspect of this novel so much. The fighting scenes were amazing and it was really exciting for me to see how many women were such a big part of these clans and how they were considered equals to the men in terms of fighting as well as their places in the community. It was a welcome change to some other novels I’ve encountered.

All in all, this was a solid standalone YA fantasy. I got exactly what I was expecting, maybe a bit more, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel.

I would definitely recommend that you all pick this book up when it goes on sale on April 24th, 2018. It’s one that I’m sure a lot of you will enjoy!

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That concludes my review for Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young.

I hope you all enjoyed!

Thank you so much for reading and don’t forget to follow my blog as well as my other social media sites linked in the side bar.

Until next time,

Rimpy Toor