if you watched my April wrap-up you
would have saw me completely and utterly
gush about this book which was A
Gathering of Ravens by Scott Oden and I
need y'all to know about this book, okay!?
so I'm going to briefly talk about the
plot and my likes and my dislikes.
I will also briefly talk about the
companion novel that follows it which is
Twilight of the Gods. I didn't quite love
this as much as the [A] Gathering of Ravens.
so I'm not gonna like completely and
gush about this, but I will talk about
the--- my likes and dislikes of this as
well. so the author pitches A Gathering
of Ravens as his idea to explore what
if a Lord of the Rings orc got a
redemption arc? and that alone, that alone
people should give you every reason to
pick this book up and read it, okay!? but
we follow Grimnir who is our orc-like
character as he is on the hunt for
revenge. and on his way to revenge he
happens to recruit or a really kidnap a
young Christian teen to help kind of
navigate Britain. so this is set during
like the Viking Age. so you know, people
are worshipping Odin and Loki and things
like that. except those things are very
much real.... so now on to my first like:
listen, I am a huge fan of enemies to
lovers, but enemies to companions should
be a thing in pretty much every book in
existence, okay? and that's what happens
in this novel and I was here for it! our
main character Grimnir and Etain, our
young Christian girl-- I would compare
their relationship and their dynamic to
be that of-- excuse me, like the Hound and
Sansa Stark from Game of Thrones. except
without all the weird creepy hints of
potential child rape. without any of that
going on. thank ya! and I absolutely
adored a Grimnir our orc-like
character. he is so f**king funny!
as I mentioned, he kind of reminded me of
the Hound, but also mixed in with a
little bit of Drax from Guardian of the
Galaxies [Galaxy] because he's not supposed to be
funny. like, he is brutal, vulgar,
disgusting, unemotional, but for some
reason all those things that make him so
funny! he doesn't even know it.
and I love it. he truly is the ultimate
antihero. there's no reason for you to be
rooting for Grimnir. he's terrible! but
you do and I love that. and then we
follow Etain, our young Christian girl.
we get her point of view and I saw--- I
surprisingly really liked her. especially
her arc. so at the beginning of the
novel we meet Etain and she is like this
very devout, god-fearing, teenager who is
very narrow-minded in her beliefs. and
throughout this novel her faith is
basically bashed and she should have
every reason to begin to doubt. however,
everything that happens to her only
reinforces her faith. and listen, I'm not
a religious person, but I didn't mind
those religious undertones [& themes]. I thought
that they were handled very well. and, and
by the end of the book she turns into
this bold and fearless Christian who was
quite a bit more open-minded when it
comes to things. 10 on 10 would
recommend her story arc. and if that
doesn't sound awesome enough, I
absolutely adored the atmosphere of this
novel. if you have watched the TV show,
Vikings, that's exactly what this book
evoked out of me.
so if you love historical fantasy then
you are going to love this novel. Scott
Oden seamlessly blends historical
fiction and fantasy into this
wonderfully crafted story that is
influenced by Norse and Celtic mythology.
so if you're also mythology fan, highly
recommend! so with A Gathering of Ravens,
like, the main plot is that Grim-ner....
Grim-nir. sorry, my country is coming
out of me! Grim-NIR is out for 
revenge.
so he needs to get to the revenge.
however, on his way there he gets
sidetracked a whole lot. so there's like
a lot of little side quests and things
like that and I thought that that was so
endearing and fun! it kinda had that Lord of
the Rings fill to it. like, literally you
got one job, okay? it's a simple job, but
things just keep f**king shit up, okay?
so during this time this is how we
encounter all the mythological creatures
in this world. we get to encounter Fae
folk. like, tree and land spirits. at one
point they even travel what they call it
the Ash Road which is like this otherworld where they can enter in this giant
tree and it allows them to travel
hundreds and thousands of miles in a
span of a few minutes or hours. super
cool stuff, okay?
super cool stuff! and this is the best
part, y'all, okay, not THE best part, but
one of the best parts.... this is all told
in 320 pages. it has the perfect
amount of exposition, and world building,
and character building, and character
arcs, and fight scenes. it's done well and
concisely which I I thoroughly
thoroughly appreciate it, okay? because
this could have easily been five to six
hundred pages but it wasn't and I love
that. and then I will quickly mention
some of the things that I liked about
Twilight of the Gods. of course, no
spoilers here, but my favorite thing that
I really enjoyed is the fact that we do
follow Grimnir's story a few hundred
years after the events of a Gathering of
Ravens. and we kind of see the effect
that his relationship with Etain had on
him. listen, he by no means is like best
friends with humans.
he hates humans. however, he says they're
just now some humans that he hates less.
and I just loved that so much. and then also there were little mentions of Etain. and I
really liked that because, obviously, the
book ends at a point and we don't really
know what happens after that. and we kind
of get a little hints into what Etain did
after her traveling with Grimnir. and
I thought that was really sweet because
even Grimnir mentioned her a few
times. and in Twilight of the Gods, we
have another female protagonist, another
young teen and she's kind of like the
opposite of Etain. and that she is ---from
the get-go--- she is bloodthirsty, she is
[vengeful], she's fierce, and brutal.
so she relates a lot more to Grimnir
than Etain ever did.
now onto my cons of these two books. the
number one
thing that I disliked, okay? it was much
more present in Twilight of the Gods than
A Gathering of Ravens. and this isn't
just because it's these books. this is
all fantasy books and that is the use of
poems and songs. ah! I can't stand that.
and listen, I understand why it's in
there. it adds to like the mystery and
the folklore and the myths. I like--- I love--
I understand that. and I like that it
adds that lushness to the world, but
first: like, I can't in my right mind
get like the cadence down to like the
poems. they're basically riddles, okay? and
I don't like riddles. just f**king tell me what
you want to. tell me instead of giving me
no information at all while also giving
me all the information. and the next con
is more so a con for other people than
myself. so in A Gathering of Ravens, as
I mentioned, there is like a minimal plot
where Grimnir is trying to get
revenge and he keeps on getting
sidetracked a whole lot. so if you don't
like that type of narrative then this
definitely will not be the story for you.
and that isn't present as much in
Twilight of the Gods. there's a more
concrete plot to that. and honestly my
biggest cons came out of Twilight of the
Gods because when I went to this, I was
under the impression that this will be a
trilogy, but each book can be read as a
standalone, but after finishing this that
is not necessarily the case? so I went to
this thinking that this is a standalone.
so we're getting towards the end and I'm like,
"how's this gonna wrap up!?" you have like--- I
don't get it. so that was frustrating to
me because I felt like the pacing was
off for a standalone only to find out
that ---well, at least I am under the
impression that the next book will be
following the events directly after the
ending of this. and then everything that
I loved so much about A Gathering of
Ravens wasn't really present in the
companion novel. there were really no
quests in it. it did dial up like the lore
level to 11.  there was a lot of prophecies.
there's a lot of song singing. and I did
enjoy that, but we really didn't get
like mythological creatures as we did in
the first book. and then Twilight of the
Gods also has a very strong emphasis on
a battle or a battle and a war a brewin'.
and that's just not my favorite. so there
were a lot of times we really--- military
tactics were talked about and I just did
not care. I don't care to read about them.
so that you know detracted from my
enjoyment. and then Grimnir was barely
present in this novel. so my favorite
character I barely got to see any
inter--- excuse me, interaction with him.
and in the story, he bonds with Disa and
she kind of becomes his apprentice. and
the reason why the relationship with the
Etain & Grimnir worked so well for me
is because we have an entire book for
them to be able to--- excuse me, they have
the entire book to build that bond, okay?
I might say bond--- it's a really strong word.
it's more of like an understanding and
tolerance to one another, but for Grimnir
that's like your best friends! and
with Twilight of the Gods they are, they
do have like this apprenticeship with
one another, but you kind of have like
this chapter where there's a training
montage and that's where  [most of] their bond is
built. so it felt very rushed. i didn't get
as much out of it as I did with his
relationship with Etain. but that may
be remedied in they follow up novel
to this. so I have high hopes and it's
definitely one of those things that when
I went into Twilight of the Gods that my
expectations were super high which
obviously can affect your enjoyment out of a novel. and at some point I will be
rereading both of these books when the
third book comes out. so I am very
confident that I will enjoy Twilight
of the Gods even more they second time
around. so yeah that is it for this
review. I hope you enjoyed it! and I hope
that you are a believer now. and that you
want to read Twi--- mean A Gathering of
Ravens by Scott Oden because you should!
because it deserves to be talked about
in this community. it needs to be up
there with The Name of the Wind and Game
of Thrones and Brandon Sanderson. it's
way cooler than Brandon Sanderson's
books. I loved it, I adored it, and I hope
that if you choose to
pick it up that you enjoy it as much as
I did. that is it for this video. I will
see you guys next time bye!
