“Life is nothing but a long dying.”

North is the Night, Emily Rath

I’m going to tell yinz a secret. …

I bought North is the Night on a whim. I did the thing where I judged a book by its cover. But in my defense, it’s a gorgeous cover. Both the naked hardback and the dust jacket. And the sprayed edges? My Lord!

So I really went in blind when I picked this title out of my TBR jar. 

That being said, I wanted to like North is the Night more than I did.

It was just so long and for what felt like little payoff. The pacing dragged and I found myself wondering why I was even continuing to read in the first place. 

Which is sad because it has a lot of elements I usually enjoy like fantasy focused on mythology, strong female characters, and LGBTQ+ representation.

First, a little background:

North is the Night by Emily Rath

Genre: fantasy

Pages: 570

Ratings: 3 stars

Goodreads sentence summary: Two bold young women defy the gods and mortals, living and dead, in this darkly mythical, Finnish folklore-inspired fantasy duology. 

And onto my thoughts … 

I’m a sucker for mythology, and I was so excited to learn more about Finnish gods, because I have no background. However, it didn’t deliver. It felt like the gods were just ordinary players in the game rather than these omnipotent beings. Saving the Finns from Christian colonization was such a huge storyline; however, I didn’t feel as if Rath laid the groundwork of the Finn’s’ culture and beliefs properly. I wanted more. Celebrate the culture. Fight for it the way you want us to fight for it. It all made the world-building fall a little flat for me.

My other big gripe was a lack of emotional connection. Specifically when it came to Aina and Siiri. I was so excited when I picked up on the clues that they’d end up together. Lesbian couples just aren’t represented in fantasy, so I was really rooting for this all-encompassing love story that would transcend realms. What I got was a big womp womp. It didn’t do it for me at all. I honestly thought there was more emotional pull between Tuoni and Aina despite the power imbalance and nefarious beginning. Maybe it was Tuoni’s desperation that pulled me in, while Sirrii and Aina were more level-headed in their feelings for each other. It was never questioned, so it remained stagnant — not even being unquestioned, I just felt as if those feelings didn’t grow from the start and that makes for a flat story.

I didn’t hate everything, though.

I LOVED seeing strong, empowered women at the forefront of a fantasy story. Not just that, but two very different women. Aina is characterized as softer, more delicate and feminine; while Siiri is bolder, harder and brazen. They are opposites, and yet they both fight for their own agency in the situations they found themselves tied to. They stake their own identity rather than allow the world to name it for them. Siiri embraces her brazenness and bravery to become a shaman and become one with her religion to save Aina. Aina braves Tuonela and finds not only her courage but her inner power to save herself and her son. They both discover the power they hold that was being taken from them by societal normalities. 

I also really enjoyed the themes of death and hope.

There’s this ongoing message between both Aina and Siiri’s stories about how death is inevitable but hope exists despite it. There is evil in this world. Cruelty, illness, injustice. Yet there is always hope. And you have to come to terms with death in order to do something with that hope. It’s not about dying, it’s about living. And that’s such a beautiful message. 

Overall, this is a one and done for me. I don’t think I’ll buy book No. 2 when it comes out. Or maybe I’ll wait for the reviews and see if it fixes any of the problems I had with it. Anyway It’s a forgettable near-600-pager for me as it stands. I didn’t even take any notes on it! That’s how little I cared about what was happening.  

When a book is a mixed bag for me, I love to hear others’ opinions. Let me know if you read this one and what you thought! 

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