The Girl the Sea Gave Back: A Novel

4 stars — HAAAALLLLLVAAAAAAARRRRDDDD!!!! Needless to say I was a wee bit excited when I figured out this was his story. (especially since it’s not mentioned in the blurb) I definitely enjoyed myself, and while I gave it the same rating, I would say I enjoyed the first book more…but I would almost bump that one up before bumping this one down. So I’ll just leave it as is. We got 2 narrators for this one since it was in dual POV, and I enjoyed them both. I thought Mr. Bittner nailed the humility of Halvaard to a tee. He showed great emotion, great pacing, and in general I enjoyed his voices (though I was thrown off by the super deep Iri voice — that is not at ALL how I pictured him sounding). Ms. Kelly was solid as Tova as well. She captured her feeling of not belonging, her confusion, her dismay. And great pacing and voices as well. Honestly, for this one I found it to be solid most of the way through, but I was super bummed with the ending. I mean, I get it, but I wanted more interaction. This was very much 2 separate stories that entwined to a certain degree, but we didn’t get much from the moments when they finally got together — mostly just the battle. Which is fine…but I’m greedy. I wanted more. Halvaard was very much the man I expected him to grow into…I loved that that fit with how I knew him. He was the same humble, endearing, kind man. I loved the development of his story in general, and the decisions he struggled with as he found his place. Tova had a very different journey, and I felt for the loneliness of her childhood — what a terrible way to grow up. It was hard to watch her just go along, but I understood it. She placed a pretty heavy burden on her own shoulders, and while I was disappointed in some of her choices, I felt like she gave herself more blame than she deserved. It was nice to see some characters we had met in the previous book (though I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be lost if you didn’t read it). There were definitely quite a few characters to dislike in this one. Gunter was a nice surprise though — I appreciated the complication of his sort of relationship with Tova…wouldn’t have minded even more insight into him, but it is what it is. All in all another solid intriguing adventure. More introspection in this one I think, and Halvaard was still the star for me.