The Girl the Sea Gave Back

By Adrienne Young, Pub date September 3, 2019.

3 Stars. Best Enjoyed at Night by Firelight

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the advanced reader copy in exchange for a fair and honest review–I had seriously been looking forward to this one and I could not wait. I absolutely loved Adrienne Young’s Sky in the Deep, so when I found out she was writing another in the same universe, I was stoked (to put it mildly).

The Girl the Sea Gave Back takes place 10 years after Sky in the Deep and focuses mainly on two people. The first is Halvard, the next chief in line to rule the Nādhir, the new tribe formed after the events in the previous book. The second is Tova, a young woman and Truthtongue (a type of seer) who washed up on the shores of a rival tribe, the Svell, to live in hostility and isolation outside of the chief’s village and protected only thinly by Jorrund, the Svell’s Tala (priest) and the brusque warrior, Gunther.

When the Svell chief’s brother decides to take it upon himself to enact war against the Nadhir against the wishes of the chief, they decide to ask the gods how to proceed. Hated by the Svell and seen only as a tool of inquiry into the future, Tova is brought in to cast her stones to and help determine what waging this war against the Nādhir would mean for them. Her cast reveals a dark future for the Svell if they decide to continue down this path…and the stones never lie. But will this prophecy be enough to stop the Svell from marching into Nadhir territory?

The book bounces not only jarringly between Halvard and Tova, but also back and forth in time. For roughly half the book, each alternating perspective rehashes what was shown in the last perspective, only from a different angle. Unfortunately, this drag was a huge downfall for the book. Eventually, it gets better and there is a ton of great information, but the best parts come far too late for this reader. There is also a massive cliffhanger that very clearly establishes this book as the first in a series. Given that, it does set a pretty strong precedence for the series itself. Unfortunately, for me, it wasn’t great as a standalone given all of the good stuff was concentrated near the end and although we get the story on Tova’s origins, we are left with massive and overarching questions.

Honestly, I had really been looking forward to this after reading Young’s debut. Although it was a bit of a let-down for me, that does not in any way mean that I will not be strongly anticipating the next book, nor that I do not recommend reading ALL OF HER WORK. Young is a very talented author and has definitely left me with some burning questions and has set us up for what I can only conclude will be a fantastic sequel.