Sky In The Deep book review

Hi guys! 

So I’ve decided that February was generally awful and best to be forgotten, so I’m just going to skip doing a monthly update on it and move on. I’ll tell you what I’m up to at the end of March. 

Until then, I want to review Sky In The Deep by Adrienne Young.

Here’s Goodreads’ take on it. 

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. 

If that doesn’t sound fantastic then I’m not sure we can be friends anymore ... just kidding. But seriously. 

This book gets a five star rating from me. I devoured it in two days, and have fallen in love with the cover. It says Breathe Fire, guys. How cool is that? It’s pretty much become my new motto. 

The characters were fantastic. Eelyn is such a boss, but I didn’t find her overly macho or masculine. I guess that might be due to the fact that she’s not special. By that I mean, all the women in the clans are warriors. The men don’t look at any of them and think “wow, they’re a warrior.” All of them are, so it doesn’t draw unnecessary attention. Eelyn makes mistakes and carries guilt, and sometimes she does reckless things, but then she learns from them, and I greatly appreciated that. 

Fiske is hands down my favorite, which will come as no surprise to anyone. This book just broke stereotypes left and right. To start with you think Fiske is going to be the dark, brooding type, but then we meet his mom and little brother and he’s just such a sweetheart to them, and even amidst capturing Eelyn he’s still looking out for her, even if it’s an odd way of doing it. His brotherhood with Evelyn’s brother Iri is perfect and really opens the door for all the character development that takes place throughout the rest of the book. No one would survive without Fiske and Iri, essentially. 

The characters are all so different and colorful. Evelyn’s dad, her fighting partner, Iri’s love interest, and Fiske’s little brother and mom. They bring in the perfect blend of gentleness, strength, sass, silliness, and wisdom. 

The story itself is breathtaking. It’s a relatively small book, but I was completely immersed in the story world and culture. Eelyn’s world is fictional, but it felt so real. Like it could have just been hidden away in the hills in Europe somewhere. 

The pacing is great, with all kinds of action interspersed with just enough calm times to not get overwhelming. 

There were so many great themes and topics in there as well. Family, forgiveness, and general humanity. I hesitate to say racism, because this book was definitely not a soap box. It was a just a great story. But both clans do learn that they’re all just people—the same. 

A note on content. This was a pretty clean book, in my opinion. Given that it’s not really a Christian book, and it’s about warring clans, I thought it might be pretty rough, and was pleasantly disappointed. 

This is about Vikings, so there is plenty of violence. I didn’t find it overly gory, but I already know I have a higher violence threshold than some people, so just keep that in mind. For the most part, the violence takes place in intense battles where everything is happening too quick to really describe it, but there is one instance of torture where things get a little more descriptive. 

While she’s captured an guy tries to hit on Eelyn, and when she refuses he takes her shirt and ties her to a tree to freeze to death, but nothing else happens. 

Later in the book there’s a spot where Fiske takes off Eelyn’s shirt, and then the chapter ends. So it’s implied things happened, but nothing is shown or talked about. 

And lastly, there is talk of the clans’ gods, and various prayer rituals they have. I didn’t pay it too much mind, but someone else might not like that, so just know it’s in there. 

So that about covers it. I thought it was an excellent book, and I can’t wait for the stand-alone that is coming out about one of the side characters. 

Have you read Sky In The Deep yet?