A review by luftschlosseule
Olav Audunssøn: I. Vows, by Sigrid Undset
3.0
trigger warning
It is with good intentions that Olav and Ingunn are betrothed as children, and Olav is taken in by his future father-in-law as a foster child as his own father lies dying.
No one senses what troubles will come of this.
You see, the trouble was that the adults didn't think the children would remember while the children grew up in the knowledge they would spend their whole life together. Insert a bit of misfortune and complicated politics, and it gets dramatic quick.
This was not at all what I thought it would be though it fits the blurp exactly. One setback was that I did not realise as I requested this arc that this book is set after people in Norway became Christian and I was excited for the Norse mythology featuring as a backdrop to this, which didn't happen.
And teenagers doing stupid stuff really, really, really annoy me.
The book starts with a short introduction by the translator, who outlines that this is the first book of a tetralogy that hasn't been newly translated in over 100 years and it's been overdue, that Sigrid Undset was the child of an archaeologist and an artist who both inspired her.
We also get footnotes that explain terms that refer to certain things found in scandinavian medieval times. Sadly, in my version the footnotes are at the back of things so I mostly ignored them as jumping back and forth in a digital copy is no fun. I much prefer the annotations to be at the bottom of the page.
The characters are very three dimensional and especially the depiction of trauma, grief and dementia were superb. Also, this one is character driven, there is no real plot. And I don't do well with those books in the most cases, so it's safe to say that this one simply isn't for me.
The arc was provided by the publisher.
Spoiler
kidnapping, mention of rape, suicide attempt, mentall illness, torture, dementia, death of a parent, being orphanedIt is with good intentions that Olav and Ingunn are betrothed as children, and Olav is taken in by his future father-in-law as a foster child as his own father lies dying.
No one senses what troubles will come of this.
You see, the trouble was that the adults didn't think the children would remember while the children grew up in the knowledge they would spend their whole life together. Insert a bit of misfortune and complicated politics, and it gets dramatic quick.
This was not at all what I thought it would be though it fits the blurp exactly. One setback was that I did not realise as I requested this arc that this book is set after people in Norway became Christian and I was excited for the Norse mythology featuring as a backdrop to this, which didn't happen.
And teenagers doing stupid stuff really, really, really annoy me.
The book starts with a short introduction by the translator, who outlines that this is the first book of a tetralogy that hasn't been newly translated in over 100 years and it's been overdue, that Sigrid Undset was the child of an archaeologist and an artist who both inspired her.
We also get footnotes that explain terms that refer to certain things found in scandinavian medieval times. Sadly, in my version the footnotes are at the back of things so I mostly ignored them as jumping back and forth in a digital copy is no fun. I much prefer the annotations to be at the bottom of the page.
The characters are very three dimensional and especially the depiction of trauma, grief and dementia were superb. Also, this one is character driven, there is no real plot. And I don't do well with those books in the most cases, so it's safe to say that this one simply isn't for me.
The arc was provided by the publisher.