The premise of this book is very interesting: sisterly bond, Norse mythology, a heroine taking a walk on a dark path. However, it just didn't grab or maintain my attention for that long. I think my biggest issue was the characters. I honestly did not connect with any of them. The relationships between them lacked emotion and I found myself skimming through many of the pages. There was a lot of telling instead of showing, which really affected how I perceived the struggles and emotions of the characters. They just felt very flat and one-dimensional. The concept and plot were good, but the execution was poor.

I love Norse Mythology and I'm always happy to read books related to it. Since I have read a couple of really good books about Norse mythology and a lot average, I have to say that even though The Weight of a Soul had potential it was an average book.
My main problem with the book was the pacing. It was either too slow or filed with too many things that in the end made me confused. Moreover, I really don't like it when things happen with no reason and no explanation and this book had a lot of moments like that. I won't elaborate because spoilers.
As for the characters, I didn't connect with Lena at all and that made it more difficult to like the book in the end.

I think that this was a book with potential, but the execution and the main character could have been much better!

Thank you to the publisher and the NetGalley for the ARC provided, in exchange for an honest review.

Quite a descriptive read portraying the love between the sisters with a backdrop of Nordic mythology.

Lena's younger sister was found dead. She couldn't get over the shock and hence made a deal with Norse Goddess of Death, Hela, to get her back. Conditions applied.

My first book by author Elizabeth Tammi, the Nordic mythology appealed to me. The love between the sisters and the grief that Lena felt at her loss struck a chord with me. I lived how she was willing to do anything to get her sister back, I meant anything.

The writing was long and quite descriptive, extremely slow for most parts of it. The rest of the characters helped to take the story further. The plot came to fruition at the end, but left me with some questions probably for Book 2.

The concept was the story and the mythology intertwined in it made me turn the pages to get to the end. A different read, for sure.

Special thanks to Flux publishing, Netgalley and Elizabeth Tammi for giving me a free ARC copy of The Weight Of A Soul in exchange for an honest review.

A lyrical tale exploring Norse mythology and the depths of the love of sisters, The Weight Of A Soul is a fascinating and beautiful story that leaves you wanting more.

WHAT IS THE WEIGHT OF A SOUL ABOUT?
The Weight Of A Soul is a story about Lena and Fressa, daughters of the chief of their viking clan. When Fressa is discovered dead, the whole clan mourns, but none to the level Lena does.

Determined that her sister should not have died, Lena will go to any lengths to retrieve her sisters soul. Striking a bargain with Hela, Norse goddess of death, Lena begins a dangerous double life.

Lena soon finds herself and her family are in far deeper than she could have imagined. They’re right in the middle of a plan by the gods to start the destruction of the whole world through Ragnarök.

With her sisters fate still unknown, Lena will go to any lengths to have her sister returned. Even to kill. But how far down this path can she go before the darkness consumes her?

WHAT DO I LIKE ABOUT THE WEIGHT OF A SOUL?
The Weight of a Soul is beautifully written. The world that Elizabeth Tammi crafts is utterly absorbing and beautiful. The characters are vivid and complex, the village in which they live bound by dynamics and politics.

Speaking of the characters, I found the ethical challenges faced by Lena convincing and horrifying. The journey Lena goes through is a dark one, but I still despite the questionable events throughout the book I found myself really liking this character. I was moved emotionally by her sacrificial love for her sister.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE ABOUT THE WEIGHT OF A SOUL?
I wanted more time with both sisters on stage, and I hope we may get this in future books. They’re both fantastic characters, who love one another dearly. Their relationship is vital to the plot, as is their separation when Fressa dies. Yet, I found myself at times wondering if Freesa was really worth all Lena was going through. I think this was due to not having as much time to get to know her prior to her death.

Some of the Norse mythology took a while for me to grasp. I haven’t read much Norse fantasy previous to now which could be the reason for this. While fascinating, I found at times I needed to reread passages to fully grasp what had actually taken place.

The ending of the book is a cliffhanger, which isn’t ideal in my opinion. I don’t like cliffhangers for the most part because they don’t feel like a real ending to the story I’ve invested in reading. I do hope there’s a next book, because I would like to know more about this world and the characters within it.

How do you feel about cliffhangers in books? Tell me by commenting on this post.

RECOMMENDATION?
If you love Norse Mythology, Fantasy or stories with strong bonds between sisters this is the book for you. If you like mystery elements and are okay with a little bit of murder and mayhem in your reads, look no further. This is a young adult novel, but is still enjoyable for adults.

The Weight Of A Soul is available for purchase from December 3rd. You can pick up a copy online from Amazon, The Book Depository or check your local bookstore!

1.5 stars

Weight of the soul didn't outrun the "Outrun the Wind".

Weight of the soul lacks a lot . Since I read Elizabeth's first book and loved it (gave it 4 stars) , I had a lot of expectations for Weight of the soul.

But weight of the soul lacks the important thing Outrun the Wind had. The pacing. Pacing was so terribly slow and the plot was barely moving. Depending the whole book on one single plot twist (which was like , super obvious by the way?) was a terrible move.


The book had a lot of twists and turns with Lena's character . But I just can't get over how stupid and oblivious she is.

I thank NetGalley and the publisher for granting me a review copy. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I really enjoy Viking stories but I was sort of disappointed by "The Weight of a Soul". It took way to long for me to get into. It is a story about a girl named Lena who is trying to save her sister's life, kind of. There needed to be more explanation about the different gods and there felt like a ton of world building and yet not enough of it was pertinent to answering the questions I had while reading the story. The book was actually really sad and Lena, in her deep grief, wasn't the most likeable. Still that played out rather realistically as far as character building. This is one of those really hard to review and rate novels for me because I wasn't crazy for it but I didn't really dislike it either.

So much build up for little to no pay off.

Literally I was so disappointed in this book. It has a fantastic premise and the fact that it’s about vikings? Sign me up. I wanted it to be like Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young with a strong likable female character but instead we were given Lena. Now it wasn’t that she was unlikable the whole time because in the beginning you really do like her and you want Fressa to be brought back but suddenly she turns into someone that’s just pretty blah. A lot of her time is spent just sitting somewhere because she can’t bring herself to do anything and you just want to step into the book to yell at her to get off her ass and get something done. There’s also the fact that she doesn’t seem to understand the ‘weight’ of a soul that Hela was trying to explain to her. The woman laid it out pretty well only to be ignored.

But still I pushed through because it was interesting and I expected some amazing pay off, but the ending came on so fast that I pretty much wanted it to just turn into Lena and Amal falling in love and having babies because that would have been better. But having the Loki reveal followed by a riot and the main character being killed? It was just rushed to wrap up the book and attempt to set up for a sequel with that epilogue but in the end I didn’t care enough about the blade and Fressa to want to know more about it.

Sadly I think I was more interested in what the story promised to be instead of what it was. However, I'm sure other people will enjoy the book, It just wasn't my cup of tea

I love viking fiction books, and I always get so excited to find one because they dont come out too often. So of course I was excited about this one. The description makes it seem super intriguing but the premise of it was slow and dragged along.

The Weight of a Soul is a historical and mythological viking story. It focuses on the daughter of the chief of a Viking clan. She loses her sister and tries hard to find her back.

That premise is one you can do a lot with. However at the end of the book I would say that the book was boring. Our main character has to find a soul that is as heavy as her sister to get her back. Again, this is something you can do a lot with. Just about the whole morality of it all. Can you honestly kill someone else to bring someone back that is already dead? But there was none of that. Our mc has never killed before and is training to be a healer. But she barely blinks an eye to killing someone and is more busy with being caught than that she cares she took someone’s life, who wasn’t even good enough. And this book is just her trying to find the soul that is of the same weight. If you have read enough of these book than you know where this is going…

It just did not make sense to me at any point. I didn’t understand this character who immediately knew something was wrong about the death of her sister when there was no hint or proof for that. She attempts to kill someone from her own clan and there are no consequences for that. We never even see this character again who was suppose to be her friend. And there were more things like that.

I honestly think that the other side of her story, what her sister’s soul went through, would have been much more interesting to have read about and should have at least been told alongside our mc’s story.

What I could appreciate was that the mc was not busy with romance. While she was being married off to her best friend there was never any true change of those feelings to one another. I liked that. It was realistic.

At the end of it there was too little for me to love here. It is currently standing as a standalone but judging by the ending I would not be surprised if it turned out to have a sequel.

Lena thought her biggest worry was her father the chief of the village who neglected his duties was to keep the village from revolting against him. Another concern was her youngest sister Fressa.. The village had difficulty with Fressa because she was better with weapons than the men in the village. Lena also knew that Fressa and her friend Amal want to marry. The three of them have been best friends all their lives. When Fressa learns that her parents arranged for Amal and Lena to marry, she is heartbroken and runs to the forest. When Lena goes after her, she finds Fressa dead. Lena can’t bear having her sister dead. She meets the goddess of death, Hela. Hela says it is possible but since she is in Valhalla, it must be a soul for a soul. Will Lena find a soul to get Fressa back? How will Lena find the soul?

This is a novel with Norse mythology in it. I found it fascinating to see the conversations Lena had with Hela. I also wanted to know if Lena would find a soul for her sister. I found this fantasy fascinating and well written.

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for the ARC. <3

I thought I would like this book more than I did in the end.

The Weight of a Soul follows Lena and her younger sister Fressa- the latter of the two is found dead. Grief for her sister is what pushes Lena to start making deals with the Norse Gods, but nothing is ever as simple as it seems. There is a lot going on in this book, a lot to enjoy and a lot that just doesn't do it for me.

First little note: I really like novels that are based on different mythologies. That's a must request for me when combing through ARC's. So right of the bat I can say that I am a big fan of the concept of The Weight of a Soul.

Moving on: Lena wasn't a great character in the sense that she really stuck with me, but I loved how she was crafted. In my opinion she was fully developed and made some really realistically (good and bad) choices- fueled by grief and her desire to bring her sister back to life. On that note, I would have loved to had the chance to go back and see more of her sister, because after a while I almost stopped caring about the fact that she was dead, and I mostly just wanted Lena to focus on healing and moving on with her story.

Perhaps I needed to get a better feel for Fressa to be able to care for her the way the author presumably hopes one would.

Amal was nothing special (as was the romance).

The writing was good, the pacing was fast and all in all The Weight of a Soul was an easy book to consume. I do wish the gods had bigger impact, but all in all this book was alright in my books.

Perhaps I am just a wee bit disappointed. Nevertheless, when it is released it will make a good addition to my library.

3.1/5

I really love the atmospheric setting and the addition of the mythology. I think it all work fluidly together. I also love the relationship between the two sisters and Lena's determination to save her sister from death no matter the cost. It felt like a very realistic YA fantasy that I recommend.

I'm here for mythology retellings, or expansion on myths. But...I don't necessarily think this one expands on a myth. This is more a story of grief.

Lena's little sister Fressa is by far the best warrior in the clan, but the men don't really see her as a warrior since she's a woman. And then she just...dies. No wound, no poison. Just up and dead. And the whole village just accepts it (weird thing number one). Then the winter starts waaaaay earlier (weird thing number two) and no one seems...really disturbed at all by it? Lena is the only one who seems to pick up on the Something's-Amiss vibes.

She convinces her sister's boyfriend/her best friend, Amal, to use rune stones to summon Hela, the goddess of the dead. Hela listens, and brings Lena to her realm on a three legged horse. There's a discussion about how to get Fressa back from Valhalla, the realm of dead warriors. Because Odin wanted Fressa there. Therefore, to keep the score even, Lena must provide a soul of equal weight to Fressa's to bring her back.

While the beginning of the story was awesome (a goddess using a human as a mercenary? YES. A murder mystery? Also here for it!), the rest of the book just...dragged. It's like a lot of story happened, but nothing actually happened, if that makes sense?

When I say this is more of a story about grief, I mean Lena's days run together, she cries, she's enraged...she goes through all the stages of grief until she finally starts to accept that she won't be able to have her sister back. But most of the book is her trying to figure out how to postpone/avoid the upcoming wedding between her and Amal. That's right! We get a forced marriage, too!

Overall, it's an okay story. It's by no means the worst book I've ever read, and I do like that we get more mythology that isn't always covered. I give The Weight of a Soul 3 out of 5 wolfblades.

I wanted this Norse mythology retelling to be epic and unfortunately, it was just boring and disappointing. It had such an interesting and exciting concept but it was poorly executed. When Lena’s younger sister, Fressa, is found dead in the woods, she is ready to risk it all to bring back her soul. What should have been an exciting quest just turned into a vague plot, with vague characters, and little action. It felt like nothing happened for most of the book, and I found my self consistently bored while reading. It seemed like there were two separate plots, the story of Lena and Fressa and the overarching scheme of the Gods. They were meant to be woven together to create some mysterious plan, but for most of the book, they just seemed unrelated. I wanted Lena to start to unravel and figure out the mystery and instead, we got almost no information or reveals until the very end which made it all very anticlimactic. The situations in this book had the promise of creating some really dynamic characters, but none of them really had much personality or changed at all. Even the penultimate reveal that should have been the realization of Lena’s character arc was taken away from her, and told TO her by another character, giving Lena no growth whatsoever, which made me think, “What was the point of this story?” I did really enjoy the mythology and the world and wish that it would have gone deeper into it because that was the best thing about the book. I’m sad that this one was so disappointing because I think it really had the makings to be a great story, but it just didn’t work.

The Weight of a Soul feels like the novelization of Norse folklore. Like an origin story. If you are familiar with Thor, then you will know a good amount of the players in this book. Not a bad read, but there is nothing new to be had here. The theme of sisters saving sisters is strong in this book, and Loki makes an appearance so if you’re a fan of Marvel movies and Frozen, this is probably the book for you.

I received an e-ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest opinion.

This is a solid 3 star read for me. It was enjoyable, although I have to admit, not as memorable as I’d hoped it would be. I was drawn in by the synopsis from the second I read it. I haven’t seen that many YA books about Norse Mythology and I was intrigued. The fact that the plot promised a very interesting family dynamic was also a plus for me. That being said, it didn’t really hook me in as I’d anticipated.

So what is this story about? The book follows Lena, the daughter of the clan’s chief, who, after the sudden death of her sister, makes a pact with the goddess Hela to try and bring Fressa back to life. Sounds very promising, right?

Here’s the things that I enjoyed:
- the writing style was immersive and very good at detailing the emotional side of the story.
- Grief is a central part of this story, and I think it’s done rather well (with some exceptions, which I will detail later)
- I loved the details about the gods, and just the overall mythology of the story, although I feel like it could have been touched upon in more depth.

That being said, I feel like there’s a lot that didn’t work for me as well as I would have liked:
- the story suffers from a very weird pacing. Everything happens quite fast for the first 100 pages or so, which was both great and a bit annoying, as I had trouble keeping up with all the events. But then the pace slows down significantly and it kind of lags. The plot too feels a bit disjointed.
- the characters themselves were enjoyable, although there is a lack of characterisation. They all fell kind of flat for me, and weren’t exactly memorable. Even the relationship between the sisters, which I think posed great potential, seemed to suffer from a huge ‘telling instead of showing’ situation. While I was immersed in Lena’s grief, I found it hard to actually feel her pain because there was little about both sisters that left an impression on me. Same goes for all the other characters, they all just kind of blurred into the background, not really catching my attention in any way.

Overall an enjoyable read, but I was expecting a more in-depth look into both grief and its effects on the characters, and the mythology.

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. I was so excited to read it, being about norse mythology and sisters bond, but it just wasn't what I expected.

Lena doing everything to bring her sister back should have been something that I would enjoy, but she was concentrating so much on bringing her back and not even the strange circonstances of her death. And to bring her back Lena had to kill someone else, which, ok, an exchange of a soul, seems logic, but that Lena is willing to kill someone, even a friend for her sister, who was already dead that just,,,, I couldn't sympathise with her. And the plot was kind of predictable, nothing really surprised me I could already tell this or that was going to happen.

I did like the part with Hela and in Helheim but there wasn't much of it, it would have been nice to have a little more mythology, especially the events of Ragnarok.

*I received and eARC of this novel from NetGalley. All opinions are honest and my own.*

I had a legit enjoyable time reading this book. The set up a of a Viking Village and the mythology, and just the atmosphere was a lot of what I was wanting from this story. I felt the cold and the chill seeping into my bones. I felt for Lena right away. Arranged marriages to her sister's love and a family that doesn't care what you dreams or wants.

However, my dislikes were the beginning being so rushed that I couldn't catch my breath. I didn't have time to connect with Lena's sister before we found her dead. I know that most sisters would do anything for each other and I believed that Lena would do that, I just wanted them to "show me" and not tell me about their love. So I would have appreciated a little more time with them, or a situation where we get to see their loyalty to each other. Instead, it felt like Lena did it out of obligation, that she felt guilty that she (Lena) was going to marry Fressa's love.

I love my sister to death and I would go to hell to get her back, so I just wanted to see some of that connection.

Also, the pacing in the back half did not hold up to the breakneck front end.

The sequel was set up nicely and I would give it a read.

3/5 stars from me.

When Lena's younger sister, Fressa, dies unexpectedly and mysteriously, Lena is grief stricken and believes that death took the wrong sister. When Lena attempts to summon Hela, the goddess of death, she is told that Fressa can come back--for a price. Lena's task: find a soul with the weight of Fressa's soul, an equal exchange. This sends Lena on a spiraling descent as winter comes quickly--too quickly--to her Viking settlement and she fears that Ragnorok looms closer than ever thought possible.

An intriguing, captivating novel about how far one girl will go for the love of her sister and her people, Tammi expertly weaves fact and fantasy, reality and mythology, into a brilliant tale perfect for a cold winter's night.