Some passages were written beautifully but other really fell flat. Blokula was talked about so much in the beginning but really had nothing to do with the rest of the story. The story was disjointed at best.

I looked at reviews before even requesting this. I read both negative and positive ones. I felt confident it would be a good fit for me.

I am bored out of my mind.

Really, the writing is lovely - quite atmospheric - but the story is extremely dull. I cannot push myself any further. I’m quitting at 38% and will not be leaving a review publicly.

So I really wanted to love this book because of the description. There wasn’t much that liked it with the blurb, besides the very first part. It was good, but I had to keep replaying the audio because I would get so lost. I think it’s be better to actually read the book.

The Blue Maiden by Anna Noyes

Two sisters are portrayed as wild all throughout their childhood with no real guidance at all. Their mother died during childbirth of her second daughter and the father is a pastor that doesn’t know how to handle being a single parent. It is set in an oppressive time period where women are to bear children and stay in their place. There is an air of religious oppression, as well.

This story has a dark and gloomy feel to it. It’s almost like I can feel the pain the character is internalizing but it left me confused. There is a plot twist in it that surprised me and caught my attention.

The narration for the audiobook was done by Alyssa Bresnahan. The narration was perfect. I’m giving the novel three stars because of the confusion and the questions due to the gaps in the story. I wanted to read this book because of the cover.

Special thanks to #NetGalley and #RBMedia for this #ARC to review.

Thank You< Netgalley and the publishers for an opportunity to listen to The Blue Maiden by Anna Noyes.

I requested this book because the premise seemed interesting and was glad to have been approved to read it.

However, I kept listening to it to make sense of where the story was going but couldn't.

I was expecting something else from the blurb but the story was not what I anticipated. What I mean is it felt like it wasn't going anywhere.

Though the setting is atmospheric, I was left confused about what I was reading about.

I'm disappointed it turned out this way.

Atmospheric and creeping in tension, The Blue Maiden is an experience of an audiobook as the tension mounts with fantastic writing and a reader that really knows how to read this, with all the right moments being accentuated.

The story really does build into something as these two sisters lives are tangled up and twist as they grow up. The way in which this story has an incredibly unreliable narration can be though a cause for confusion where I don't know what is true and what is false. If this was the plan for the book of course, the author really did good however it can feel confusing in moments.

Uncomfortable and moody as it goes on, the gothic tones weave through the book as the sister's lives unfold in this book - it's almost a slice of life on an incredibly oppressive island that is a character within itself, with (human) characters that though they grow up, they don't really develop.

Though this book can be a little frustrating the writing is beautiful. Reading this you can see the Island come to life and it does feel heavy, the weight of the writing leaving you need to process this book when you finish the last chapter.

I just don't know how to feel about this book quite yet, and maybe that's the point? I wish I knew.

(Thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the Audiobook ARC for review).

I really do not know how I feel about this one. It is complicated and almost real. The sisters are being raised by their pastor father because their mother died when she gave birth to the second girl. The oldest was 7 at that time and she was the only person concerned with saving the baby. So she raised her sister. They were essentially feral.
At 17 the younger sister married a much older man and she is fully in love with him. It turns out he likes her because she looks like her mom. It gets more bizarre from here.
I loved it but I also felt weird about it all.
The narration was spot on though. I love the narration!

After the death of their mother Beata "Bae" and her older sister are two spirits left to be cultivated by the physical and philosophical nature of their small island home. Their father, the local pastor, frequently locked away in his ruminations is determined to keep the memories of their mother locked up as tightly as her abandoned bedroom. A door is such a flimsy barrier for willful girls. The sisters scramble to latch onto the bits and pieces of history that's left in her wake. Bae constantly thirsts for stories if her mother, of their local lore, of the things that we only learn from the world around us. Guided by Ulrika's tales and a precious heirloom, the sisters try to navigate the social system they've been cast to. As the seasons change so do the sisters, drifting down their own paths, as they map out their own mark on this land. Some things that bloom are familiar to the seemingly timeless patterns the off cast community has maintained. But some truths of nature, of those hidden secrets revealed, are bound to create their own unique impressions.

This novel of tribute to the consistencies and contradictions that exist concurrently in nature, personality, stories, and across time. There is a slow pace to the narrative that echoes the gradual shifts in the land itself. Crops, businesses, natures, faces, some have been found on the island since the opening generation. Some have cycled out and returned. Some are planted. There isn't an element to this story that isn't touched by this pattern and the rhythm of the land even if isn't directly correlated.

The pastor, pious and dedicated to his profession and faith, is a proponent of doctors and science. Yet he insists in the importance of very traditional roles for his daughters. Being the elder sister and oldest women, Ulrika is left with a household on her shoulders. She is the one set to spinning tales and holding moral for her sister and father instead of flourishing in her own adventures --or so it seems. He is a man who aims to lead by example, but sometimes is reluctant in this. where as other characters in this profession are usually seen as cold, callous, and stringent for the most part he seems pliant and a victim of his own frailities. Though he is not without his tempers and own shadows.

To its credit, this novel has a writing style that is concise and yet seems incredibly lyrical. There is a very tactile nature to the sentences building a sturdy image and atmosphere. The delivery of the narrative by Alyssa Bresnahan is one that is not quiet haunting but sticky and luring, perfect for a novel that tries to center itself around generational stories that pass core morals from one age to another. It also has a complex web of character traits that can pull the reader one way and the other when they're regarding how they feel about any of our players.

In spite of this, "The Blue Maiden" feels rather average. While it doesn't feel like the intent, there are no incredibly unique. Its narrative pieces are haphazardly strewn about. It is more of a quick study, a cartoon or abstract, instead of a photo-realistic rendering.

Starting out as an exploration of local myth, of childlike faith, belief in adventure and the ability of sheer will to create, it fizzles with the early adulthood of the sisters to begin a more domestic drama. There is an element of mental health that's role is never clearly defined. I had anticipated it might be this confusion, this envisioning, that would bring the characters back to the original tale. Perhaps cause this story to lean to magical realism and be a metaphor that ties together the tone of the first half to the conclusion. The abrupt shift to an ending, while there is some cylindrical resonance, leaves this feeling incomplete.

What was most frustrating was the shift in attitude between the sisters. While there is a traumatic event that shakes Bae's identity, this later takes form in deep seeded resentments that there were no inclinations of as a child. While it would have caused reveals too soon, I also felt myself craving more of Ulrika's story and that of their local naturalist and acquaintance of their mother, Bruna. It was such a sudden melancholy that seemed out of place with the willful child whose inner spark now changed with the wind.

"The Blue Maiden" is in its whole a beautiful work in its parts, but not a masterpiece. It does feel like a novel that should be savored, and if a reader is there to absorb the feel of time and the way a place molds itself into us they will find something to enjoy. I just wish it left me knowing it was a tale that would long linger.

This book was very different than what I normally read, but I enjoyed it none the less. It is a combination of witchy vibes and female perseverance. It follows the two sisters and their tragic story, filled with complexity, jealousy, and pain.

This is not a feel good book, but it was beautifully written and the audiobook was top tier.

We enter this magical tale in 1675, Sweden where 32 women are slaughtered, suspected of witchcraft. The island in which they all lived is ominous and holds many secrets.
We fast forward to the same island but in 1825 where we meet two sisters, Ulrika and Bea who are under the close watchful eye of their father, the pastor Silas. Much of their late mother’s history is unknown but is slowly unearthed throughout the story.
We journey with Ulrika and Bea, both vastly different through adolescence and adulthood.
The imagery is captured beautifully and the reader instantly feels transported to early 19th century remote and rural Europe.
There is magic, heavy nature elements, Nordic myth, accompanied through love and loss.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Press for allowing me to read The Blue Maiden and provide my honest review.