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4.5 stars

Finishing Menewood this morning, I'm reflecting on this month-long reading experience. I read Hild in August and started this one not long after. Hild was bright and shiny and sharp. This one is bloody and epic, all things I hoped for and expected after Hild.

But it's also a protracted and deep meditation on grief. That pain ebbed and flowed through this novel. I didn't expect this book to be so sad. Its effect surprised me, and each pang shivered through me. Pondering grief as deep as a lake.

The impact of war. Messy, bloody, heartbreaking, grim. Holding space in my heart and mind all month for that visceral tone. The permanent ache of family gone. The fear of losing everything. It's a big book on feeling small. And then rising up and becoming legendary.

So while it didn't captivate and enchant me like Hild did with its sparkling light of the world, it lay in my mind as dead weight and made me reflect on the suffering in the world caused by cruelty. How some never come out from beneath that oppressive weight. Some do manage to overcome, but can they ever be the same?

Nicola Griffith is a talented wordsmith and a storyteller and this time, she confronted me with the darkest shadows of humanity.

content warnings
Graphic: Miscarriage, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Child death, Death, Grief, Incest, Murder, Pregnancy, War, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual violence, Sexual content, Classism, Sexual assault, Alcohol, Animal death, Medical content, and Rape