Beast Becomes Her by Crystal Seitz

e-ALC, 14:32:11
Narrated by: Daniel Henning & Jade Wheeler
Release Date: March 3, 2026
Published by: Simon and Schuster Audio
Read from: March 15-17, 2026
 Stand-alone
Source:  Libro FM  (I received this ALC free from the publisher and Libro FM. This did nothing to influence my review!)
Content Warning: Gore, Domestic Abuse, Death of a Parent, Death, Grief, Physical Abuse, Animal Cruelty, Animal Death, Child Abuse
For Readers Interested In: Action, Audio, Fantasy, Feminist, Sparkly Covers, YA

     Netflix’s Wednesday meets Norse mythology in this gorgeous dark contemporary fantasy following a teen berserkr sent to a secret magical academy where she must unmask the real killer behind the gruesome campus murders or risk becoming the next victim.
     Edith has always been a good girl—she has to be, or her foster family might think she’s like her violent father. No matter how much anger simmers inside her, she keeps it buried, hidden…
     Until the day she’s pushed a step too far, and that anger comes bursting out in the form of literal claws.
     It’s then that Edith learns she’s a berserkr, a descendant of ancient Norse warriors with the ability to turn into animals. To avoid jail for attacking a student, Edith is shipped off to the mysterious Skallagrim Academy. The ancient school is supposedly a haven for people like her, a place where she can learn to control her powers and then push them down so deep that they’ll never come out again.
     But someone—or something—is stalking the dark halls of Skallagrim.
     On her second night, Edith stumbles upon a gruesome murder and is caught at the scene of the crime by Amund, who is tasked with hunting down wayward berserkir. Now, with Amund suspecting Edith as the killer, she’ll have to catch the real culprit to prove her innocence before she ends up in the hunter’s crosshairs—or becomes the killer’s next victim.

*MY THOUGHTS*

This was one that I was really looking forward to. I didn’t read the synopsis, so I didn’t really know what I was getting into before I started this, but it surprised me. This was good, but I also have so many questions about the ending. So basically, this was a wild-ish ride lol

Ok so the main thing about this was the mythology. I’m not nearly as versed in Norse mythology as I thought I was because I don’t remember any of this lol (Yes I am a product of the Norse mythology series from Riordan lol) But it doesn’t go real in-depth on what this particular story was about. It just said that there were these shape-shifters. And then obviously the fights they were getting into and how they were reacting to all the things. I even was confused as to why they put these things that hate each other in the same school Why in the world would you put a hunter and the thing they hunt in the same place?

The ending was crazy. The pacing and repetitive nature is what threw this off. It was nothing and then everything all at once at the end. They were trying to solve this thing and then there were just more schmurders, not really them finding out anything. It was a bunch of back and forth. And they really didn’t make any sense. It was one of those things where they should have found at least SOMETHING by then. But in the end, things started coming together and it actually ended on a real message that I actually liked. There is a feminist twist to it and I loved that, but I fear it got lost in the crazy and info-dump in the end.

The other thing I didn’t care for but still didn’t like, was the world-building. Why in the world would you set a school in Iceland and not describe what Iceland is like? I’ve never been so I wanted to learn about it through this, But you actually don’t get any information on what it’s like lol I was disappointed because what was the point of specifically stating that it was there just for there to be hardly any mention about what its like there.

I liked the overall message in this, but it might make you look for it. If you pick this up I hope you don’t miss it and you love this more than I did!

Overall, I give this