Published by Soho Press
Age Group: Young Adult
Format: Fiction
Genres and Categories: Gay Characters, Mental Health Representation
My Rating:
Published on: 9th November 2021
Pages: 336
Disability Representation: Anxiety, Brown-Séquard Syndrome, Chronic Pain, Deaf, Hearing Loss, Heterochromia, Mental Health, Missing Limb, Post-Concussion Syndrome, PTSD, Waardenburg Syndrome, Wheelchair User
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A genre-defying debut, this queer historical YA centers a wild and reckless trio who fly in the face of small-town tradition—full of compassion, love, and determination to live the lives of their choosing.
It’s 1904 on an island just west of Norway, and Asta Hedstrom doesn’t want to marry her odious betrothed, Nils. But her mother believes she should be grateful for the possibility of any domestic future, given her single-sided deafness, unconventional appearance, and even stranger notions. Asta would rather spend her life performing in the village theater with her fellow outcasts: her best friend Gunnar Fuglestad and his secret boyfriend, wealthy Erlend Fournier.
But the situation takes a dire turn when Nils lashes out in jealousy—gravely injuring Gunnar. Shunning marriage for good, Asta moves with Gunnar and Erlend to their secluded cabin above town. With few ties left to their families, they have one shot at gaining enough kroner to secure their way of life: win the village’s annual horse race.
Despite Gunnar’s increasing misgivings, Asta and Erlend intend to prove this unheard-of arrangement will succeed. Asta trains as a blacksmith; Erlend cares for recovering Gunnar. But as race day approaches, the villagers’ hateful ignorance only grows stronger. With this year’s competition proving dangerous for the trio, Asta and Erlend soon find they face another equally deadly peril: the possibility of losing Gunnar, and their found family, forever.
This book was provided for free by NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!
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The Reckless Kind Review
The Reckless Kind came to my attention while I was working on GeekDis, but it was unfortunately not available to review at the time. A book with multiple disabilities and LGBTQA+ representation caught my attention despite being in a genre I don’t normally read. The Reckless Kind looked to be one of those books that was too important not to read. Read on to find out if my instincts were correct!
The Reckless Kind is a historical novel set in Norway in 1904 and focuses on the lives of three friends: Asta Hedstrom, Gunnar Fuglestad and Erlend Fournier. Asta and Gunnar have known each other since childhood, and they became associated with Erlend through the theatre his father owns. Each of them comes from a completely different background.
Gunnar is the son of the local female farrier (horse specialist), and their family has won the village’s annual horse race for the last few years, much to the anger of their neighbours. It isn’t just jealousy that fuels this anger; the Fuglestad family are “heathens” (pagans), they do not believe in God or follow the Christian religion. The annual horse race is a celebration of the local Christian saint, and the fact that a heathen family continues to win the race, thus saving the price pig/s from slaughter, infuriates many upstanding men in the village.
In comparison, Erlend comes from an entirely different life; his family are wealthy foreigners, and his parents let their son use their theatre to hold plays with his friends in hopes that he’ll grow out of his silliness and settle down eventually. The truth is that Erlend has no interest in settling down, especially not with a woman. He struggles with anxiety, throwing stomach pills down his throat to try to stop the churning he constantly feels. All the while, he puts on a facade that he knows what he’s doing, yet Erlend has never had to do anything for himself or anyone else.
Asta was born Deaf in one ear, with heterochromia (different coloured eyes), a white stripe in the front of her hair and a facial deformity. As Heath points out in her notes at the end of the novel, these are all signs of a condition of Waardenburg Syndrome; however, this syndrome would not be formally named for another fifty years.
The character of Asta is complete fiction, but the idea for her came from a description of a child that Heath happened upon during her research. What Heath instantly recognised as Waardenburg Syndrome was not how people in a small village in Norway in 1904 would react. Asta is openly shunned and mocked by her community, kept hidden away by her parents until her two elder sisters had secured husbands. Even to her own family, she was considered an inconvenience, a mistake, and she was made to believe that she must accept Nils’ proposal because no one else would ever accept her.
Friendship is not the only tie that binds these three friends; each one of them is an outcast, and that draws them together. When events force them to choose between each other or the people who have never and will never understand them, they choose each other. While standing apart from the wider community isn’t easy, especially for three young people who are disabled, gay (Erlend and Gunnar) and asexual (Asta), more trials and tribulations are awaiting them.
While there’s no actual magic in The Reckless Kind, this is a novel that makes its own magic. It’s a beautiful story of resilience, identity and belonging, of finding your truth and following your own path. It’s not always easy to do it, and along the way you’re going to stumble and fall (a lot), but in the end you’ll end up where you want to be and with whom you want to be.
The Reckless Kind is a reminder to all of us that our people, the ones who love and care about us for who we are, not what we look like, who we love or what we believe, will always stand by us, and they will walk that path with us.
As I said, I don’t read outside my preferred genres very often, and if you’re the same, The Reckless Kind is one book I suggest making an exception for 😉
(I want to add that while I’m using modern terms in my review, Heath does a fantastic job of remaining within a historical context and refraining from using modern language and concepts.)
About Carly Heath
Carly Heath (she/they) earned her BA from San Francisco State University and her MFA from Chapman University. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Carly teaches design, art, theater, and writing for various colleges and universities. She spends all her time and most her money tending to a menagerie of rescued farm animals. The Reckless Kind is her first novel.
Over to you
Thank you for taking the time to read my review for The Reckless Kind. I hope you enjoyed it 🙂 There are multiple layers to this book, and if you love horses, you’ll love the way they feature in this book, too.
Don’t forget to check out the rest of my reviews if you’re looking for some more book recommendations 🙂 You can also now sign up for my newsletter to get an email each month with a list of my new reviews!
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