As Matt’s temper flared, his amulet flared with it. He reached for the silver pendant. It was in the shape of an upside-down hammer and almost as old as the longship. Thor’s hammer. Everyone in Matt’s family had one. Thorsen wasn’t just their name. They really were descendants of the Norse god.
-Loki’s Wolves
Title: Loki’s Wolves
Authors: K.L Armstrong and M.A. Marr
Genre: Middle grade, fantasy (Norse mythology)
Pages: 358
Date published: May 7th, 2013
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
My overall rating: ★★★½✰
Synopsis
Matt Thorsen is a direct descendent of the order-keeping god Thor, and his classmates Fen and Laurie Brekke are descendents of the trickster god Loki. When Ragnarok–the apocalypse–threatens, the human descendents of the gods must fight monsters to stop the end of the world. (Google Books)
My Reflections
I LOVE Norse mythology, so as I was searching for a book to read and came upon this one, it sounded perfect for me! While this book did mostly live up to my mythology expectations, it was unfortunately lacking in good character development and the writing, though it seemed to slightly improve as the book went on, was a bit rocky.
The plot of the book itself sounds simple: get a team together, find some objects, and stop the end of the world. But let’s be real, you can go so many different ways with that plot line! I liked how the authors were creative with bringing in some of the elements from Norse mythology, such as Valkyries, trolls, and maras (freaky nightmare hags). Of course, this was to be expected from a book dealing with Norse mythology, but nonetheless that aspect of the book proved satisfactory for me.
One thing that I feel like the authors could have done better was the writing itself. Each chapter switched between the POVs of three characters: Matt, Fen, and Laurie. The two authors, Armstrong and Marr, actually alternated chapters (Armstrong wrote Matt’s chapters, while Marr wrote Fen’s and Laurie’s). Sometimes changes in scenes would be so abrupt it was difficult to follow what was happening, and other times the descriptions of the scene or what was happening were so scant I had trouble visualizing them. However, this did seem like a bit less of a problem as the book went on.
Another issue I had with Loki’s Wolves was the characters. Fen is Laurie’s cousin, and he’s been watching out for her since they were in kindergarten. He himself doesn’t have any family, and gets passed from relative to relative, but he sees Laurie as a little sister. This explains why he’s so protective of her, but his actions still were too extreme for me. Every time that they encountered danger, he wanted her to get out of harm’s way. This makes sense, but he kept on insisting on this even when Laurie proved that she was capable of handling herself. And what frustrated me even further was that although Laurie knew Fen was being overprotective of her (if any other guy so much as talked to her, he would tell them off), she didn’t take a stance for herself and try to explain to Fen that he could trust her to make her own decisions and that wouldn’t change how she looked up to him as a brother-figure. The authors just didn’t show me enough of Fen’s backstory to justify his actions; it felt like they just briefly mentioned it a coupe of times and repeated the “he had a difficult past/he had no other family” lines. If they had delved more into Fen’s past, maybe they could have sold his protectiveness of Laurie, but honestly it felt more controlling and almost possessive to me. All of the characters remained fairly static throughout book even though there was plenty of room for development.
One area that the authors did take the opportunity to mature their characters was in Matt and Fen’s friendship. At the beginning of the book, the two boys dislike each other immensely, and between Matt’s control issues and Fen’s temper, they did not get along well at all. However, by the end of the novel they have come to understand each other more and even trust each other, which was a nice change to see.
Overall, this book was okay, and I might read the subsequent ones in this series just to see if Matt, Fen, and Laurie will grow into more developed characters and and also to see how the authors bring about Ragnarok (the end of the world). You might want to check it out if you’re into Norse mythology, but it wouldn’t be my #1 recommendation for books in that area.
Characters/character development: ★★★✰✰
Plot: ★★★★✰
Setting: ★★★★✰
Eloquence of voice: ★★★★✰
Interesting/Captivating: ★★★★½
OVERALL: ★★★½✰
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