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A review by books_ergo_sum
Beautiful Wreck by Larissa Brown
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
5.0
Here’s my nomination for best microtrope of all time:
✨ time travel, where the heroine has a specific bit of historical knowledge (in this case, she reconstructed 10th century Norse languages) that lets her go to the past—without the author having to sacrifice on the richness of the setting.
Our heroine (who was actually from the future) time travelled back to a 10th century Icelandic Viking village. Where she fell in love—not just with a virgin Viking guy—with a Viking guy who Had. Never. Been. Touched.
Ohhh baby. I was living. It was super slow burn. And it was fairly fade to black. BUT IT WAS SO EMOTIONAL oh my gawd
This book did so many things right but the biggest one was the way it didn’t shy away from unsettling me with this culture clash. The worldbuilding was top-tier. The culture, the religion, the longhouse setting—I was happy for our heroine. But I was also so scared for our heroine.
It also did this thing, that’s kind of hard to explain… but the book kept making me reflect on scenes. Like, the meaning of scenes wasn’t static. Because as the heroine learned the double meaning of words or the cultural symbolism of gestures (or even flowers), scenes took on whole different meanings. It was really cool.
Also that ending was epic (there’s an HEA, no worries!)
✨ time travel, where the heroine has a specific bit of historical knowledge (in this case, she reconstructed 10th century Norse languages) that lets her go to the past—without the author having to sacrifice on the richness of the setting.
Our heroine (who was actually from the future) time travelled back to a 10th century Icelandic Viking village. Where she fell in love—not just with a virgin Viking guy—with a Viking guy who Had. Never. Been. Touched.
Ohhh baby. I was living. It was super slow burn. And it was fairly fade to black. BUT IT WAS SO EMOTIONAL oh my gawd
This book did so many things right but the biggest one was the way it didn’t shy away from unsettling me with this culture clash. The worldbuilding was top-tier. The culture, the religion, the longhouse setting—I was happy for our heroine. But I was also so scared for our heroine.
It also did this thing, that’s kind of hard to explain… but the book kept making me reflect on scenes. Like, the meaning of scenes wasn’t static. Because as the heroine learned the double meaning of words or the cultural symbolism of gestures (or even flowers), scenes took on whole different meanings. It was really cool.
Also that ending was epic (there’s an HEA, no worries!)