Book Review: Liesmith

Book: Liesmith (Book 1 of the Wyrd) by Alis Franklin

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available now

Description:

At the intersection of the magical and the mundane, Alis Franklin’s thrilling debut novel reimagines mythology for a modern world—where gods and mortals walk side by side.

Working in low-level IT support for a company that’s the toast of the tech world, Sigmund Sussman finds himself content, if not particularly inspired. As compensation for telling people to restart their computer a few times a day, Sigmund earns enough disposable income to gorge on comics and has plenty of free time to devote to his gaming group.

Then in walks the new guy with the unpronounceable last name who immediately becomes IT’s most popular team member. Lain Laufeyjarson is charming and good-looking, with a story for any occasion; shy, awkward Sigmund is none of those things, which is why he finds it odd when Lain flirts with him. But Lain seems cool, even if he’s a little different—though Sigmund never suspects just how different he could be. After all, who would expect a Norse god to be doing server reboots?

As Sigmund gets to know his mysterious new boyfriend, fate—in the form of an ancient force known as the Wyrd—begins to reveal the threads that weave their lives together. Sigmund doesn’t have the first clue where this adventure will take him, but as Lain says, only fools mess with the Wyrd. Why? Because the Wyrd messes back.


Rating: 1 star (Did Not Finish)

Review:

The writing style made this really difficult for me to really connect with the story and enjoy it. I thought the premise was interesting the way the author tried to modernize the Norse Gods and the story had a geek as the main character however the writing was so boring that I had to force myself to read as much as I did before calling it quits.

The tales from Norse mythology that was included at random points in the story was throwing off this already slow moving story. I really thought this story was going to be good but it wasn't.

The story follows main character Sigmund Sussman who is a chubby geeky sort of guy who works in IT at a technology company. He spends most of his off work time working with two of his friends creating a video game and buying comic books. One day a new IT employee Lain Laufeyjarson was introduced to the rest of the IT staff and immediately Sigmund got the feeling that something wasn't right about Lain. Because from the stories that Lain tells there seems to be hints of lies dispersed throughout and somehow Sigmund is a sort of human lie detector but not wanting to call out the new guy for lying he doesn't say anything about it.

But Lain isn't who he says he is, he's the CEO of the company amongst being God of Mythology more specifically Loki. Sigmund had met Lain's alter ego Travis Cameron Hale at the company Christmas party and was getting to know Lain even more. But the more they got to know each other somehow a latent power was awakened in Sigmund but it wasn't until the two was on a date that other powerful beings came to attack them.

I mention this in another post but I blamed the Thor and Avengers movies for being so successful that Norse Mythology has become popular again. The writing for this was so bad that I would compare it to bad fan fiction. Because only in bad fan fiction would the God of Mischief turn into a hero hipster IT guy.

There was nothing interesting about this story it was boring and poorly written. I have no idea why "Lain" even went undercover perhaps the reason is told near the end of the story and the romance between him and Sigmund was truly unbelievable. Seriously, they had absolutely zero chemistry. None of the characters in this book had a personality and this felt like a complete waste of time to read.