Published in 2013, this novel became popular again a little over a year ago and I added the first book to my TBR list. Well, I read it and was thoroughly disappointed. I am not planning to read any other book of this series because I don’t believe this story can be saved. I give Runes by Ednah Walters 2 out of 5 stars.

Runes starts out with a teenage girl named Raine who is introduced to us as both a high school athlete and smart, sensitive bookworm. Her father went missing three months ago when his plane went down but her mother is convinced he is still alive. She has two friends, Cora and Eirik, that have been with her since childhood. She’s in love with Eirik and has been for years. He seems oblivious and has never made a move, despite Raine asking him outright to kiss her. Cora is introduced as a vapid gossip who has a blog that is all about the hottest guys at their school and how much fun she has. We are left to imagine what kind of fun that is. When Torin, a hot wicked-looking guy, moves in next door, Raine doesn’t know how to feel or who she really loves. While she’s questioning this, Eirik and her share their first kiss and she struggles to care while Torin is around. She never actually says anything about this to Cora or Eirik and lets her relationship with Eirik start this way. Lots of crazy things happen that are directly related to Norse mythology but I don’t want to spoil too much if you’re crazy enough to go read this book.

All other things aside, this book started off strong with multiple typos and grammatical mistakes in the first chapter. It’s obvious early-on that this book is full of almost-cliches and very convenient little snippets that make no actual sense but allow the author to move the plot forward. Norse mythology is a cool concept, especially thinking about the popular books of 2013, but it is not done well in this book. I struggled to care about the characters and became increasingly frustrated with Raine as she was actually acting like a vapid, terrible person throughout the book. She’s selfish and self-absorbed and nothing like the character she was introduced as. She’s also really not good at research, which is a pretty trivial thing to be frustrated by, but when she’s introduced as a nerd it makes very little sense.

Poor Eirik serves as nothing but a doe-eyed plot device that exists as an NPC (non-player character) until he’s useful. He sees his new girlfriend spending time with this new hot guy (who he hints he knows but that’s never actually revealed in this book) and doesn’t say anything about it but that she should stay away from him. It is heartbreaking to see her pull him in for deep kisses only when Torin is watching and he somehow doesn’t notice when they pull apart that she’s staring behind him.

I only finished this book because I realized early on this would be a good example of exactly what I do not want to write. It reads like fanfiction that came from a fan of the Twilight and Mortal Instruments franchises. That being said, not all of the aspects of this book were bad, which is why I gave it two stars instead of only one. There were some scenes that were very well written and some of the plot points were executed well. The scenes and aspects of this book that were not executed well far outnumber the few I enjoyed. I have no idea what anyone saw in this book as a whole. There’s a “cliff-hanger” at the end but I was so disenchanted by the writing and the lackluster characters that I do not want to waste my money on any other books by this author. There’s a small possibility that the writing got better as she continued with the series but I would rather not spend my time figuring that out.

As always, if you have different opinions or would like to discuss other aspects of the plot with spoilers, my email is open! If you have any book recommendations for me this coming year, drop them down below.