I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Freya by Matthew Laurence Series: Freya #1
Published by Imprint on March 14, 2017
Pages: 352
Format: ARC
Source: the publisher
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Freya is myth. She is legend. And she’s about to make one hell of a comeback.
Sara Vanadi is more than she appears to be.
In her prime, she was Freya, the Norse goddess of love, beauty, war, and death. Now all that’s left of her legacy is herself. Her power comes from belief, and for an ancient goddess in the 21st century, true believers are hard to come by.
She’s been lying low for a few decades, when all of a sudden a shadowy corporation extends an offer: join them and receive unlimited strength and believers—or refuse and be destroyed. Sara chooses neither; she flees with the help of a new friend named Nathan.
With a modern power rising that wishes to bend the divine to its will, Sara decides to fight back—but first she needs some new clothes.
When I finished Alex & Eliza and went to pick this up, I fell into a reading slump. I had a lot going on and I was super stressed and just couldn’t focus on reading. I didn’t read for nearly a month! And then a 6 hour flight forced me to read and I FINALLY picked this up and got into it and HOLY CRAP I LOVED IT SO HARD!!!! This was definitely one of my favorite reads of 2017! The cover is gorgeous, the writing is amazing and the characters are epic!
I loved Freya (the character) so much. She has so much personality and spunk! I love that she’s so body positive (“Body-image apocalypse.” Bahaha!) and that she embraces beauty and fashion. She’s hilarious, too. I loved the juxtaposition of her “goddess of love” and “warrior goddess” personas. It’s like she’s at odds with herself, yet she’s two perfect halves that make a fierce whole. As far as heroines go, she’s up there with Feyre, Celaena, Alina and Suze, in my opinion.
Nathan is an interesting character. In the beginning, he was cool, but nothing fantastic. As the story went on, however, I really started liking him. He was so loyal to Freya, despite her insane life and how it put him in danger at every turn. I also loved the role reversal that went on. Usually it’s the human girl running after the vampire boy or whatever, but this time the human boy is running after the goddess. Nice change of pace!
Dionysus is effing hilarious, if not arrogant and cocky. He reminded me of Casanova from Karen Chance’s Cassandra Palmer series. In fact, the entire vibe of this book reminder me of the Cassie Palmer books. So if you were a fan of those, I recommend this book! Following that train of thought, I loved that their “hideout” was at a Disney theme park. It was like a kiddie version of Dante’s!
Another character I liked was Sekhmet. She was cold and calculating, but in an intriguing way. I can’t wait to see more of her in the sequel (Because yes, there’s a sequel and I fangirl about that in the last paragraph, so see below!)
I’ve always been fascinated by Greek mythology, but lately, I’ve just wanted to read books about ANY and ALL mythologies, so I LOVED being introduced to so many pantheons in this book. There were so many gods and goddesses (Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Hindu, Hawaiian) I’ve never heard of and now want to research and read more about, like Izanami (Izanami-no-Mikoto), a Japanese goddess. She’s Queen of Yomi and mother of the gods. “Once giver of life, now its destroyer,” as described in the book. Now I want to know her full mythology!
The ending of this book was INSANE and EPIC and I’m SO, SO, happy that there’s a sequel, but WHY IS IT NOT COMING OUT UNTIL MARCH 2018, THAT’S TOO LONG A WAIT!!! *SOBS!!!!*
So, yes, I HIGHLY recommend this to fans of mythology and to fans of the Cassandra Palmer books!