From the author's afterword, this seems to be part of a publisher series of retold myths. The author decided to stick to the mythical element and used a framing device of a young child discovering the myths through reading them. It's noticeable how very violent this is, and how it doesn't end well for anyone. The afterword was very interesting in itself. ( )

This retelling struck me as abstract and dry. I know some readers always find Byatt abstract and dry, but the intellectual quality of her writing is one of the characteristics I usually find most appealing. Here, however, it wasn’t effective—it sucked all the vibrancy out of what I find is an earthy mythos. Unlike others in the Canongate's The Myths series that I’ve read, Byatt didn’t “retell” the myth, but simply told the myth literally, under a thin veneer of a girl who, during World War II in the UK, likes to read Norse mythology. I’ve recently read Neal Gaiman’s Norse Mythology, and frankly it was far more enjoyable, if far less academic. ( )

This book is bi-polar. It goes from fantastic to freaking boring every 10 pages. If the book had been 50 pages instead of 100, it would have been great. Byatt's prose is great (at times), but oh, all those enumerations... :( ( )

I like Byatt, see that I gave this myth-explaining, myth-busting book five stars in 2015, but now eight years later, can't much about it. ( )

I had really high hopes for this book, but while it was interesting in a vague sort of way it fell quite short of being memorable. Byatt sets herself up with a dual storyline - contrasting the events of WWII with those leading up to the mythological Ragnarok, but her protagonist draws her parallels from the English countryside (where her family has been evacuated to) rather than from the global conflicts of the war. Clearly Byatt has drawn on her own experiences and the story is meant to be semi-autobiographical, but the lack of a real conflict in half of the story made the entire book fall flat. Not to mythologize (or romanticize) the horrors of WWII, but there was so much more that she could have drawn on to truely create a unique narrative which blended myth and reality. ( )