book review: odd and the frost giants | ****

Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman

Everything I know about Norse mythology I learned from a superhero movie. Which, weirdly, helps a lot when you find yourself in the middle of a fairy tale -- that's probably not the slot it technically falls into, but I can't think of it as anything else -- that involves Thor and Asgard and the Rainbow Bridge, especially when the story is so short there's no space for the author to explain most of the mythology.

Odd and the Frost Giants was sitting on my bookshelf, ready to be returned to the library because Rabbit decided it was not for her, and I thought "SELF, YOU NEED TO READ SOMETHING ADORABLE" and decided to give it a go. Gaiman's story is, indeed, adorable. I liked it a lot. I don't know if I would have liked it as much if I hadn't seen Thor a couple of months ago; I probably would have been a little lost. Also, on the one hand, I wish Odd had been less of a hollow character, but on the other hand, the way he's written kind of works with the whole fairy tale thing.

The illustrations are charming, too. I think I'm eventually going to find a copy of this to stick on the bookshelf.


(4/5)