Helga without the H

Two star review, originally published here on June 19th, 2024.

I have a confession: I was very tempted to lie here. There was a point where I was not finished with the book yet, but fully intended to just mark this as read, leave a bad review, and move on. There’s no reason why I need to share that, except to give an idea of how badly this book failed at maintaining my interest. This book is another casualty in this year’s frustrating attempt to use the Libby app. In this case, I went for the audiobook, and thought from the description and the run time that I would have no problem plowing through it quickly. It sounded like such fun! Plus I had it checked out during an international trip, which would mean plenty of time to listen at the airport, on the train, while sleepless with jet lag, etc. Right? Wrong. This book just didn’t hold my interest, which means I wasn’t reaching for it at all during the trip, which means that I could not get through it before my loan was due back. I really tried to cram it in at the end, too. But I had another hour left. We seemed to be in the climax scene (er, the closest this snoozefest had to a climax), and I was thinking, “Do I even want to finish this? Do I care enough to put this back on my list and wait another month or two for a little more disappointment? Sigh… no, not really.” But, I hate leaving things as DNF, so I put it back on my list and waited to check it out again. It was a long wait, because for some reason this book is super popular. I tend to stay away from super popular books because I tend to hate them and am left wondering what is going on in everyone else’s brains, but something about this one appealed to me. When the book finally returned, goddam did that last hour drag. But now we’re at the end. Let’s go back to the beginning.

First, the good. There is plenty of great stuff about this book! Which might be tough to believe coming from me given the two star rating and the intro paragraph whining about it. But hear me out… First of all, the concept is fantastic. I mean honestly, it’s clearly well thought out, and it’s so clever! This is an alternate history where witchcraft is real, but was squashed by religious zealots several generations back. As we learn about this world, we are re-introduced to actual historical events, but from a new angle that assumes witchcraft was involved. But, even better, the implication here is that fear of witches was actually just fear of women (so… just like in real history), and each historical even is re-framed in a way that does not center men. The book doesn’t so much ask us to believe in the supernatural, as it asks us to believe in women. A novel concept, I know. Also, each chapter begins with a familiar nursey rhyme or story, but reframed to, again, be viewed from a witchy women’s viewpoint. It’s all so well thought out, and I loved it.

I also loved the idea of our main characters, and their three interwoven backstories. We focus on three estranged sisters who reconnect. There’s the pretty one, the nerdy one, the wild one. The pretty one works in a mill, is knocked up, and falls for a sexy rogue. Their sexual tension is steamy, and I’m sure someone’s writing erotic fanfiction about them. The nerdy one works in a library and does scholarly work on old spells while simultaneously falling in love with a lady journalist. The wild one is a badass fearless teenager who’s not afraid to fight, and is used to fending for herself. When the three are pulled together again in this alternate history and wind up aligning with suffragettes, we are all poised for some amazing storytelling!

Except, that’s not what happens. Somehow, this book winds up trying to just cram in too much. Yet at the same time, nothing ever seems to be happening. It’s tough to put my finger on it. Scenes just seemed to drag on forever. Plot points were both contrived and boring. I don’t really remember what we were actually fighting for or about. It’s weird to have been so bored by this when I stop to think about the plot. Some crazy shit happens in here. But maybe that’s the problem? It’s kinda crazy shit, but it’s told slowly to lose my interest. Some elements just felt jammed in there. For example, at one point we learn that some random side character is trans. Why? I don’t know. It has nothing to do with anything in the plot. So why is it even brought up? Other reviewers do a better job explaining how weird this part felt. A reviewer named Katrina said, “This book is also doing this weird thing that a lot of newer books does which is sprinkling in genderqueer people and people of color but they’re still kind of these extras in the background. They are really never given any story they’re just there to spice up the central white people character’s stories. Sometimes with those kinds of characters I’d almost rather they just be left out because having these cardboard characters just be there to serve the wwhite characters makes it worse.” That’s pretty spot-on.

I think that, with a very heavy-handed editor, this book had potential to be amazing. Especially because, at times, the writing was absolutely beautiful. But there was just too much of it. There was too much verbosity, too many characters, too much plot, too much history, too much magic, too many social issues, too much everything. It was too much to pull off effectively. Which it did not. I was actively pining for this book to just be over already, which is a shame.

Also, I was not a fan of the audiobook narrator here. Maybe that tainted my experience, but I could not understand the voices she chose for anyone. Sure, there were a lot of characters, so maybe distinct voices were hard to pull off, but… I dunno. Some people were cartoonishly over the top. Like, why did the nerdy sister’s love interest sound like foghorn leghorn? She’s supposed to be an educated black woman from New England (I think), but somehow we wound up with Colonel Sanders. Other voices I swear were changing as we went, like the narrator herself couldn’t keep track. She was much better when just reciting stories or spells than when trying to convey dialogue.