The Witch's Heart
By: Genevieve Gornichec / Narrated By: Jayne Entwistle
Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
A mighty Booo! + Major Spoiler = This Review… you have been warned…
Oh gosh, The Witch’s Heart was an audiobook I was set on absoLUTEly loving. You see, I read the Publisher’s Summary and was smitten. Okay, so I know painfully little about Norse Mythology having stared at my navel all through my college Mythologies of the World class, so I started thinking of Madeline Miller and her completely well-done Circe.
Indeed, this audiobook shrieks: I WANNA BE (THE NORSE!) MADELINE MILLER!!! which is, yes, as pathetic as it sounds. Certainly this is not as cleverly crafted as Circe, and it is entirely lacking in the sheer poetry that was Song of Achilles.
Rather, when Big Sis and I got together to discuss this, my own commentary began with a mediocre: >MEH< and devolved from there. The story, not engaging through its entirety, struck me as a Series of Events: Some Woo Boo Fraught Events, and some Aw Sweet Caresses Events… but a collection of Events nonetheless. Decidedly Uninspiring.
Angrboda comes to after Odin has had her burned as a witch who did not give him his way. Turns out this was her third stint at being a charred witch coming back to life. This time, she flees and lays low in a cave in a forest. After almost being struck dead-ish by an arrow, she comes to meet the woman who shot the arrow, Skadi. Now, Skadi, it turns out, will become the most compelling and well-written character of the entire story. Alas, she only shows up every now and again to move the Events along.
Soon, Loki turns up, and he and Angrboda strike up an unusual-ish friendship complete with what, I’m assuming, is s’posed to be witty banter but is instead Loki being a “clever” jerk, and Angrboda being a wet-noodle severely lacking in backbone. Soon (Again), the two realize they’re desperately in love and mean to behave as a couple, married for all intents and purposes. So it’s sorta unfortunate when Loki, on one of his meanderings back to the cave after an extended Just Being A “Clever” God Jaunt, arrives and tells Angrboda that he’s gone and been married to another woman. Author Genevieve Gornichec then crafts what is presumably meant to be an emotional scene whereby Loki expresses that No, Reeeally: Angrboda is the Only Love for him, pesky wife on the side that he’s been knocking up notwithstanding.
Angrboda? Get a spine? What, who? Her?!?
Not on your life. Instead, the writing has her as pining away for Loki as she plods about filling time. Skadi on the other hand? For her? Nothing short of castration will do for the man if she ever sees him, and how dare he treat her Bestie like that.
Through all the absences and brief “loving” reunions, three children are born, all three of them being somewhat… different… and an unfortunate encounter with Loki’s other wife leads to devastating consequences for Angrboda and her children. And then the story is simply her moaning about her children, her lack of witch-ish powers, her loathing of Loki… though she’ll lose her spine yet again.
To save her daughter from the Fiery End of the World, Angrboda will sacrifice herself, her own life, to shield the cave her daughter is convalescing in from the firestorm. And she does. Does one shed a tear? Welllll, p’raps one is misty-eyed for all of a few paragraphs until Gornichec writes it so that Life shall continue, a new society shall rise up, cuz others made it through… so WHY did Angrboda, ever so needlessly go and sacrifice herself when OBVIOUSLY, many many others just kinda sorta Made It Through. Like, what? They just happened to saunter a few hundred yards away, and Poof! all good?! Why didn’t the witch who could see the future see THAT?!
Now onto a fave narrator of mine; Jayne Entwistle. LOVED her in The War That Saved My Life and The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, wherein both young heroines showed that they were precocious without being nauseating. Entwistle has a grittiness to her voice that brought a sort of quippy intelligence to the characters, but that grit just grates on the ears here. For Angrboda? The woman’s spinelessness shines forth; for Loki, his flakiness comes out loud and clear, his earnestness coming through as just so much whining for Angrboda to yet AGAIN give him a gazillionth (And sixth!) chance, to let him back into the cave, etc. etc. Skadi is well done and compelling, but our two main characters are repellant. So not Entwistle’s best interpretation, but it could be such MAJORLY annoying characters being just that: Annoying.
Awesome premise, decidedly poor character-crafting, poor choices made by characters throughout the entirety of the story.
And?
Twelve loooong hours of m’ life that I can NEVER get back…
Oh woe is me, lemme tell ya!
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