Thunder Girls 4

Man, I took forever to get back to this series. Sorry, Skade. You're still my favorite. 

I reread books 1-3 right before this and man, these can be repetitive. I feel way moreso than Goddess Girls. How many times to we have to mention the Ragnarok button or list off everything Loki did wrong? We can remember what he did wrong because he's literally the source of the problem in every single book. 

Well, maybe not this one. I'm only half done. But I'm willing to bet he does something. 

So! Skade is the goddess of skiing in this series. We open with her doing some dancing for the first time in her history class. Only apparently, she can't dance. She's completely unaware of it and thinks she's doing fine, but she overhears Njord making fun of her and boggles this kick thing all the students were trying to do. Then the teacher takes her aside and accuses her of mocking tradition. She explains that she wasn't doing this on purpose, but he doesn't believe her. 

I'm gonna stop right here and complain. The teacher is completely wrong here AND I find it to be an unrealistic situation. Dancing doesn't come easy to everyone and from Skade's description, this isn't an easy dance. 

Also, Njord is a dick, but the normally bold Skade is too embarrassed to stick up for herself, which reads as both out of character and letting a bully get away with bullying. We've got Loki and Angerboda in this series. Did we need another asshole? No.

The book did win some points though because it's mentioning way more new students than the first three. We got the names of a light elf and a human in the third book, but this time, we've got Ull and Balder. Then three frost giants arrive and they get names and descriptions, so this book is slightly redeeming itself. 

The frost giants invite a team of nine skiers to a weekend competition. Odin is a bit hesitant, but eventually agrees. 

After the last classtime is cancelled, the students hit the snow. Loki causes an accident between Angerboda and Skade, and then the two learn Odin is watching and judging who will be the nine chosen for the team. Angerboda starts being fake nice. Skade worries about the things Odin is looking at: athletics, attitude and academics. Naturally, she's concerned about her lack of dancing ability being a problem. She tells the other girls about it and they try to give her a lesson, but when she's practicing on the way to dinner, she overhears Njord and Loki making fun of her again. 

I swear, if the authors have Skade just suddenly like Njord after he's bullied her like this I will be pissed. At least she's showing signs of liking Balder, who's really nice. 

And look, there are the girls at the table. Romance-obsessed Freya notices Njord looking at Skade and of course HAS to say something about it. She can be even more annoying about this than Aphrodite. Instead of telling exactly what Njord has been saying to her, Skade just says he's been annoying her and teasing her. So OF COURSE Freya writes it off with the typical "boys tease girls they like" bullshit. I hate that. It can confuse younger girls into what like-teasing is and what flat-out bullying is. Stop making excuses for boys and start teaching them to communicate their feelings without being mean. It's not that hard. I don't like that Skade has an understand of Njord's words as mean-spirited but refuses to tell her friends. They already know about her dancing trouble. They'd think Njord was an asshole, too, if she would just take a second to fucking explain it. 

I love Skade, but she deserves way better than this plot. I'm so disappointed. 

So Skade is hoping she can show her teacher dancing improvement the next day, but then Odin comes in and says he's chosen the team members. Skade is named as the alternate to the confusion of the others. I think it's another bit of bullshit that bitchy Angerboda was chosen but Skade wasn't. Odin tells her after that it was her dancing and her attitude because when Angerboda went to hug her on the slopes earlier Skade backed away. Anyone as observant as Odin wouldn't be fooled by Angerboda's fake nice girl show. At least Skade mentions this. Odin gives her a little pep talk about being confident even in the face of scary things.

Balder comes to talk to Skade and she asks why he's been yawning so much. He tells her about nightmares in which giants keep bothering him. She, Thor and some others go with him to tell Odin about it. Odin has the idea to extract a promise from every possible thing that could harm Balder, a promise that they won't hurt him. 

The team travels to Jotunheim and Skade leads the way. Freya had flown all their equipment there in her kittycart. She'd wanted Skade to come with her but Angerboda took over that invitation. Angerboda suggests Skade, the lowly alternate, take all their belongings to the igloo dorm the frost giants have made for the teams. While doing that, Skade encounters the giant Skrymir, who she doesn't like, and sees some terrifying fire giants for the first time. 

After that, Skade gets some skiing in and then there's a surprise girls-only aerial tricks competition that even alternates can participate in. Skade does and wins. She, a Vanir and a human are the three winners who will each pick a male skier to compete with the next day in the same event. 

At dinner, the Asgard team (joined by Loki because of course they are) learns that Balder is protected by a force field, which accidentally begins a food fight. Skade stops the fire giants from being pissed by explaining that good fights are fun, and by doing so, she's as good a friendship ambassador for Odin as are Balder, Freya and Yanis the light elf. 

Freya tells Skade that she learns the aerial girls will pick their male companions blindly. The boys will stand behind a curtain, revealing only their boots. Wanting to pair with Balder, Skade goes to the boys' igloo to try to see what his boots look like. She notices Loki acting suspiciously and the next morning, Balder is suddenly out of the competition. Loki put mistletoe in his boot and somehow also tricked Odin's ravens into not securing their protection promise from mistletoe. Loki knew Balder was allergic to it and with his toe swollen, he's out of commission. Loki wanted into the competition to impress Surt, the lead fire giant with a badass flaming sword. But the others aren't having it and Skade is in all the events now, not just the aerial tricks. 

However before knowing about Balder, Skade did choose her partner by his boots, but didn't realize Balder had loaned his boots to Njord, who'd only worn a new pair that weren't broken in yet. She ends up stuck with Njord, but he apologizes to her not once but twice in the course of the book. They end up making a good team after all.

The first event is an obstacle course. Skade spots Ratatosk there and realize her team has to wear the ugly reindeer antler beanies knitted by Frigg. She talks everyone into putting them on because she knows Ratatosk will mention they weren't wearing them. When she falls on the ski slope, she realizes the beanies are actually spelled to be protective headgear. 

The competition itself is crazy. The frost giant Skrymir used magic to create illusions that mess with everyone except the frost giant skiers. Pissed off, Surt uses his flaming sword to fight them, which sets trees on fire and melts enough snow to create an avalanche...of water. 

Once the reach the end of the ski run, a message acorn tells Skade and Njord that Balder is missing. And he's in Helheim of all places. So off they go down the treacherous Helrun ski run to get to Helheim and rescue Balder. Hel in this series is an older woman/monster who is forced to babysit the spirits of the evil dead. She liked Balder's voice and soothing personality so she gave him nightmares that eventually led him to come to Hel, where she's got him reading stories to the evil dead. Hel makes a deal that she'll free Njord, Balder and Skade from Hel if they can make one thing living and one thing dead cry for him. Skade herself cries and then she gets Njord, god of the sea, to bring salt water from the rock itself, creating a waterfall and pool. Hel is thrilled because the evil dead have a cool place to swim, so she lets them all go. Freya came to pick them up in her kittycart, saying that the rest of the competition was cancelled, but then they all realize a lot of these events are the same as what's been predicted to lead to Ragnarok. So then it's a race back to Jotunheim to stop three roosters, gifts from the fire giants, from crowing. Freya's giant cats scare the roosters and save the world. 

Once everyone is back in Asgard, there's a celebration and Skade finally gets over her fear of dancing. She invents some goofy moves and some ski-based ones that others like. She and Njord are officially okay in my book now, but she also realizes she's not crushing on either him or Balder, though maybe someday she will. Even Angerboda is more helpful and happy. 

The second half of this book really improved upon the first, though the plot is all over the place. I assume the authors knew this was the end of the series. There hasn't been a fifth Thunder Girls and it's been almost two years. I think that's why the Ragnarok plot got shoved in there at the end. The redesign of the death of Balder myth would have been enough on its own otherwise. Not a bad quick ending to the series though. I do still like Skade best, even if elements of this book weren't to my liking.