Sweet Reads: Thor: Daughter of Asgard

I really, really hate to give a poor review, especially to a novel that seems so perfectly geared towards my tastes, but sometimes I find myself completely disappointed and a bad review is inevitable. Thor: Daughter of Asgard should have been an easy like for me. I like cute dorky lesbians. I like Norse mythology. I love urban fantasy. But, try as I might, I couldn’t find much to like.

Thor features two ladies who have just found out that they are, in fact, the reincarnations of Thor and Sif and Alys, the Loki that loves them. Unfortunately, Hannah (Thor) and Emily (Sif), despite falling into bed and immediately moving in together almost as soon as they meet, have little to no chemistry. Both have more chemistry with the non-binary Alys, though that may have to do with the fact that Alys is the only one of the three with any real personality.

The author attempts to lampshade stereotypes with multiple jokes about U-haul lesbians while also perpetuating those stereotypes and others. There are more than three mentions of Hannah bench-pressing a semi. There are other metaphors for superstrength out there, it is not necessary to keep pulling out the same one. Ditto for bad dad jokes every time anyone mentions eating.

Thor starts out as a Rule 63 Norse Mythology Fanfic, and a fairly boring one at that, until more than halfway through the novel, when Hel’s evil plot starts to come to the forefront and the pacing actually begins to quicken. Things actually start to happen, and the slight amount of interest that managed to drum up is the only reason that this book isn’t receiving one star. The plot, when it finally showed up, was a pretty decent one, and I would have liked to have seen it (and more conflict) earlier on so that it didn’t feel like such a slog to get there.

I wanted to like this book, but there was just not enough there there. A little more developed main characters, and a little more developed relationship between Hannah and Emily, and maybe it would have felt more like a story I wanted to stick with long enough for the plot to get rolling.

I received Thor: Daughter of Asgard as an ARC from NetGalley. It will be published on January 12, 2021.