Beast Becomes Her

Gr 9 Up–In her second young adult book, Seitz uses Norse mythology to ask what it means for a woman to embrace anger as part of her identity. Edith Holden is only a teenager, but she has a lot to manage. Her parents died by murder-suicide, and she has anger she can’t seem to suppress. When she learns that she is a berserkr—a human who turns into an animal when enraged—she worries that she has inherited her dad’s violent temperament along with his brown hair and gray eyes. After learning the truth about her family, Edith goes away to a secret Icelandic school, where she must learn to control her anger before an even greater threat destroys her and the boy she’s beginning to love. Seitz is a confident storyteller, offering up surprising twists, creepy villains, and convincing red herrings. She’s created a book that is by turns eerie, violent, and touching, as Edith comes to terms with her traumatic past. The story may be too intense for some readers, but it will have others hurrying to learn the truth about the spate of murders threatening Edith’s school. The cast of characters is diverse.