this was a great scifi novel, the characters were great and I really enjoyed the storyline. It was a fun read and I look forward to reading more from the author.

I don’t think I would have picked up this book if I knew what to expect going in. (This is one of those instances of totally judging what a book would be by it’s cover, which is absolutely gorgeous, and that’s 100% on me.)

One, I was expecting a novel l, but instead I got a collection of 3 novellas bound together by the characters and interludes. (This might not be a big deal for many people, but personally I find shorter stories harder to become invested in when compared to longer plots.)
Two, although the world-building features flying narwhals, they are background in the world-building rather than central to the story. For some reason I thought they would be more prominent.
Three, while this is definitely an epic journey, it is much more psychological in nature and almost reads like a few character studies interwoven rather than an adventure. Personally, I didn’t particularly care for the characters and there weren’t enough other elements to keep me super invested.
Four, the random Shakespearean. It was jarring and out of place to me.

That being said, there were a lot of elements of the story and the writing that I enjoyed. I am completely in-love with the world-building in this book, and I think flying narwhals are the coolest fantastical animals since dragons! The characters were interesting enough that I never felt compelled to stop reading, and I was curious how things in the story would progress.

As a final note, I would really like to see this book reviewed by some people who have struggled with addiction as well as people from the indigenous cultures that were featured.

Orluvoq is a fantastical book about magic, addiction, magic narwhals (!!!), and duty to family and clan. I really liked the unique setting of this book and loved reading a mythological story that is not western based. However, I don't know about the mythological accuracy and depiction of culture as I am not part of that community and know almost nothing about Inuit stories.

I thought that this book was a good depiction of addiction and showed the darkness of struggling with substance use. That said, many of the themes of this book are very dark and reader discretion should be used when deciding to read Orluvoq.

I found the prose of this book very distracting as many of the words made it feel like the author used the thesaurus on pretty much every word. I felt like I was reading a pretentious high schooler's creative writing assignment. I would have appreciated more straightforward language than the overuse of flowery synonyms.

Overall, I would recommend this book if you would really like to read a myth from a different culture, if you are okay with exploring dark themes of substance use, and if you don't mind excessive thesaurus use. 3 stars.

The cover is absolutely stunning, but that’s as far as the praise goes with me. I am a plot-driven reader, so this was definitely not the book for me. I was also troubled with following such a young character who has an addiction. Absolutely heartbreaking.

☆☆☆,5 /5

À la vue de la couverture et du résumé, j’avais énormément envie de découvrir ce roman. Je n’ai que peu lu de romans qui s’inspiraient ou traitent de la culture amérindienne, et ici précisément de la culture Inuit, alors j’étais vraiment très curieuse d’en apprendre plus.
Je dois dire que cela a été une plutôt bonne lecture, bien que cela n’ait pas atteint mes espérances.
¤
La jeune chaman Orluvoq se retrouve sans clan et accro. Son dernier espoir de survie, un talisman, est enterré avec sa mère.
Au bout du monde, une falaise de glace descend à jamais. Son visage glacé contient tous les morts qui sont déjà morts.
Les chamans brûlent des défenses de narval pour faire de la magie pour le clan. Chaque chaman apprend à ne pas manger la défense. Le haut est trop grand pour résister, et leur clan périra par négligence.
Mais tous les chamanes ne font pas ce qu'on leur dit.
Ainsi, Orluvoq doit descendre la falaise de glace au bout du monde et retrouver ses parents morts. Sinon, elle les rejoindra bientôt dans la glace.
Si elle réussit, elle pourra enfin passer à son vrai plan. Séduire un roi.

Désolée, c’est une traduction approximative.
¤
Tout le long de ma lecture, j’ai eu de la difficulté à entrer dans l’histoire et à y rester. J’avais du mal à suivre la protagoniste, à y être attachée. L’écriture de l’auteur est belle, facile à lire. Pourtant, j’ai trouvé qu’il y avait trop de phrases alambiquées, que des figures de style auraient pu être évitées parce qu’elles étaient non-nécessaires. Ce qui m’a le plus dérangé dans cette lecture, c’est que j’ai eu l’impression que c’était trop, qu’on avait voulu en mettre plein les yeux au lecteur, mais pas de manière subtile.
Néanmoins, j’ai vraiment adoré découvrir la culture Inuit au travers de ce roman. L’univers est original, bien construit. J’ai énormément aimé découvrir cette vision de la vie après la mort sous la glace, la signification que l’on donnait aux aurores boréales et aux narvals. C’était poétique et spirituel, je trouve et ça m’a fait rêver. Ça m’a donné envie de me connecter avec la Nature, de l’écouter et de la chérir -plus que ce que l’être humain devrait. Je ne connais que la culture Innu, qui est la culture amérindienne la plus proche de là où j’habite et j’ai tellement de choses à apprendre sur l’histoire de ces peuples qui ont été rejetés et torturés par les colons de la pire des manières. Et c’est encore d’actualité aujourd’hui.
Également, j’ai particulièrement apprécié que l’on parle de consommation, de dépendance. Ce sont d’ailleurs des thèmes qu’on généralise souvent sur les peuples autochtones et à tort quand on voit les statistiques qui listent les populations les plus portées sur les drogues. J’ai trouvé que l’auteur maîtrisait son sujet. Oui, on parle de dépendance et dans ce roman, c’est une enfant de 8 ans qui est addict. Ça peut paraître irréel et pourtant, je sais que ça existe et dans ce récit, c’était bien raconté, c’était assez bien expliqué pour que j’y crois.
¤
Franchement, je pensais que ce roman avait tout pour me plaire. J’ai découvert une nouvelle culture. J’ai pris plaisir à imaginer un univers poétique, beau et spirituel. J’ai appris à connaître des personnages uniques au sein d’un récit sombre.
Pourtant, c’est une lecture que j’ai apprécié mais sans plus. J’ai eu l’impression qu’on a voulu trop en mettre, trop en faire… sans pour autant que les choses se passent. Et malheureusement, cela a joué sur mon ressenti.

 ENGLISH REVIEW:

When I saw the cover and I read the synopsis, I really wanted to discover this book. I haven't read a lot of books that draw inspiration from Native American culture, and here specifically Inuit culture, so I was really very curious to learn more about it.
I have to say that it was a good read, although it didn’t meet my expectations
¤
The young Orluvoq shaman finds herself clanless and addicted. Her last hope for survival, a talisman, is buried with her mother.
At the end of the world, an ice cliff descends forever. His icy face contains all the dead that are already dead.
Shamans burn narwhal tusks to do magic for the clan. Each shaman learns not to eat the tusk. The top is too big to resist, and their clan will perish through negligence.
But not all shamans do what they are told.
Thus, Orluvoq must descend the ice cliff at the end of the world and find his dead parents. Otherwise, she will soon join them in the mirror.
If she succeeds, she can finally move on to her real plan. Seduce a king.
¤
Throughout my reading, I had a hard time with the story. I found it difficult to follow the protagonist, to be attached to her. The author's handwriting is beautiful, easy to read. Still, I found that there were too many convoluted sentences, that these sentences could have been more simple. What bothered me the most about reading this was that I felt like it was too much, that we wanted to impress the reader, but not in a subtle way.
Nevertheless, I loved discovering Inuit culture through this book. The universe is original, well constructed. I really enjoyed discovering this vision of life after death under the ice, the meaning we give to the northern lights and narwhals. It was poetic and spiritual and it made me dream. It made me want to connect with Nature, to listen to it and to cherish it -more than what human beings should. I only know the Innu culture, which is the Native American culture closest to where I’m living and I have so much to learn about the history of these people who were rejected and tortured by the settlers of the worst manners. And it’s still relevant today.
Also, I particularly appreciated that we talk about consumption, dependence. These are also themes that we often generalize about indigenous peoples, and wrongly when we see the statistics that listen to the populations most inclined to drugs. I found that the author mastered his subject. Yes, we are talking about addiction and in this novel, it’s an 8 year-old child who is addicted. It might sound unreal and yet, I know it exists and in this story, it was told well, it was explained well enough that I would believe it.
¤
Honestly, I thought this book had all I like in my readings. I discovered a new culture. I took pleasure in imagining a poetic, beautiful and spiritual universe. I got to know unique characters within a dark world.
However, it was just a good reading. I felt like we wanted to put on too much, overdo it ... without actually getting things done. And unfortunately, it affected my feelings.

This was a compelling and thoroughly enjoyable read from start to finish with a great storyline, interesting cast of characters and all capped off by skilful writing. It's well worth your time if you appreciate great storytellers.

The cover and illustrations throughout the book are absolutely stunning and help with imagining how some of the scenes in the book look like.
I picked up this book because it sounded similar to "The Wolf in the Whale" by Jordanna Max Brodsky, which I really loved.

Things I liked:
- the imaginative world-building (narwhals, shamans, a ship on the ice pulled by dogs etc.)
- names and culture felt well-researched
- dark and cold atmosphere (you'll need plenty hot drinks while reading this!)

Things I didn't enjoy:
- the age of our MC (I felt 8 years was quite young to portray an addict, maybe it wouldn't have felt this crass if Orluvoq would've been 15 or 16, but it's really the authors choice and there are kids out there that deal with addiction in real life)
- the writing style - some passages felt dragged out while with others I needed some more information like, how does this ship work and how are the dogs attached to it or how does the kite flying work. Is it a kind of harness and how do they change direction etc. I loved all those ideas, but I needed more explanations.
- I love dark books, but this was something else. At times it almost felt like you were sucked into a cold black hole and I would give content warnings just for that. Maybe if you're dealing with depression and bad mental health, I would stay away from this book.

Altogether I still enjoyed reading it and would consider picking up more books from the author in the future.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with this eArc.

I truly wish I liked this, I unfortunately wasn’t able to force myself to finish this :( I rarely ever dnf arcs, but I just couldn’t continue. The plot felt pretty nonexistent and the plot that was there was unfortunately boring to me.

The cover is what caught my eye, it’s beautiful! I just wish the contents of the book reflected the cover’s beauty :(((

Orluvoq was at first a really slow starter for me, it did take me a while to get in to it and I regularly had to go back to reference things, mostly the characters names (the names are quite complex and I believe true to the Inuit culture which the story's clans were based on)

The story did eventually pick up though, and in the end I really, really enjoyed it. I would like to note that Orluvoq is quite dark and looks hard at addiction and other quite dark topics, all of which I believe to be handled well. My only real gripe with the book is that at times it felt like the author had swallowed a thesaurus, the words and language he used could be quite difficult to follow but that was also inconsistent. This may be due to the POV used though and may have been true to character. It did put a dampener on the experience for me personally though because I had to think too much about what it was trying to convey, which meant my immersion in to the world was restricted.

Having said that I would recommend the read, the story itself and how everything tied in and all loose ends were concluded made it a very satisfying end. Just go in with an open mind, and maybe thesaurus, and I don't doubt that this story will be a big hit for so many. Besides who doesn't want to read about magical Narwhals?!

❗I had to DNF this book the review is purely on the first 30% of the book❗

I got this book as an ARC from NetGalley. I read the blurb and thought I would love it: a girl fighting her addictions, finding her place in a world (seemingly inspired by Eskimo or some kind of Nordic culture) and attempting to seduce a king.

I really tried to continue reading, but I couldn't do it.
The prose is trying too hard to be complex. The characters are not developed, I didn't care for any of them. There were scenes added in that were overly disturbing just for the sake having that adult fantasy trope of "this world is unforgiving". There was no world building, which really made me sad because I was trying to understand if these people sail on ice and fly into the Aurora borealis. If so, how does it work? What are these clan? Etc.
On top of that, the plot was non-existent. At least not for the first 30% of what I read.
I got bored of only reading about an 8 year old being addicted to eating narwhal tusk.

Overall, this book was not for me, and I did not want to use up more of my time to read it.

DNF'd at 55%

Y'all, this book is so much I don't even know where to begin.

Okay, so I DNF'ed this but it isn't permanent - I likely will return to it at some point. I can't really think of a cohesive way to break down my thoughts on this book so I'm going to do a good old-fashioned "Pros and Cons" list. I did chose to give it 2 stars, since I had to assign a rating.

Pros:
- The worldbuilding in this novel is super unique. I've read a few stories inspired by Inuit culture but even among that sub-genre this feels really different. The "afterlife" is at the far south of the ice-covered world. The far north is a magical island bordered by a wall of water that stretches into the sky without end. The aurora borealis links the world and is basically a sky river populated by sky-narwhals with magic tusks that are hunted by the humans for food. The magic tusks of these sky-narwhals are also used to make magical candles, and can be consumed as a highly addictive magic enhancing drug. AWESOME.
- The description of addiction is super realistic. Like many people, drug abuse and dependency has impacted my life and reading the descriptions of the various characters in this novel who struggle with it rang true.
- I liked the characters. They were largely not meant to be likable, but I enjoy a villain or two so I liked them.

Cons:
- The pacing was just way off. This book is trying to do a lot and, while the content was interesting in theory, the pacing of the story suffered for all the ideas the author was trying to shove into it. This is the main reason this was a DNF for me.
- This is largely personal preference but the writing style wasn't my favorite. It kind of reminded me of a more-pretentious "The Bird and the Nightingale" in terms of the language, which is saying something because that novel is pretty pretentious. (I did like it though so don't come at me.)
- JESUS CHRIST THIS STORY IS DARK. Now, I am someone who likes a dark story, give me the dark underbelly of humanity and I'm all for it. But since this book was not short, the unending stream of super dark topics just got to be a bit much. While there were moments of levity for balance, they were too few and far between to be effective.