After getting to the 40% mark on my kindle, I can safely say, I have zero clue what the heck this book is trying to portray.

The prose is confusing to follow, the narrative jumps all over the place. There is an over abundance of “facts” being used but it doesn’t actually explain anything. So it gives off the vibes of someone who is trying to prove they are really smart but don’t know how to utilize their own intellect.

I applied for the ARC for this because the synopsis talked about Ragnarok, and that piqued my interest as a lover of Norse Mythology. After 40% the only thing Norse related as been the the word Valhalla once, so I am assuming it doesn’t actually have anything to do with Ragnarok. Everything else is school?church? Or university? I don’t know!! At some point the guy is in jail, and then there is medication, and a random girl who he I guess loves but can’t have. And Theater plays. It’s all over the place and just doesn’t make sense.

I don’t know if it’s me, or if it’s the book, but this overall just doesn’t make any sense to me, so It will be a DNF for me at 40%. I was provided an ARC copy from LibraryThing Early Reviewers, in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Thanks to Librarything & John Ott for the ARC

This was a really weird read. Really weird. Deeply weird.

It is prose poetry and leans hard on the poetry angle but also not quite but also, yes, fully that. Thomas and his dog Henry are in hell. Hell it turns out is Graduate School. Is language. Is institutions. Is what comes after those things are over and we must, or at least Thomas and the cast of characters in City, Winter must contend with. Storms are coming and they are weird too. Robin Wyatt Dunn takes us the weird way by poetry and digging deep into language. There are few answers. There will be many questions. It is almost like it is a translated work - it feels like it comes from another galaxy and Dunn is the translator of an Epic poem from within his own mind.

Its weird. It will weird you out in the best way and it begs to be reread because it will leave you after sections just staring trying to come to terms with what was just read. There are origins. There are endings and colors and puzzles, and always, as ever, a good dog. ( )

Have you ever have a friend or acquaintance that pretends to be intellectual, but can't quite pull it off? Yet, the only person who really believes they are part of the academic scene is the friend/acquaintance. Based on this novella, author Robin Wyatt Dunn is one of those people.

The author throws nonsense "facts" and words into prose loaded with enough eye-rollingly awful metaphors to make one wonder what on earth were they thinking? Oh yea, they were thinking "how can I make it seem like I am smarter than everyone".

I know this may seem like a personal attack, it is not. It is just my honest opinion of a book I could not finish. Could it have gotten better after I stopped reading? Maybe.

NNR Says 2-Stars, only for fans of Robin Wyatt Dunn ( )