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4.14 AVERAGE
4.14 AVERAGE
*spoilers*
I hope all of them are in the stars, with each other and next to their respective lovers, so that they can be happy. The ending is sad, but at least one family stayed whole. This made me so sad however I am happy that they got their little house, and that they have happy memories with each other even during the wars. It really is such a beautiful story full of love and loss. I hope that none of the children will have to go fight.
The writer did an amazing job at describing their relationship. I love that there are historically accurate names and events in the book; It adds realness to the story.
In conclusion It is an amazing book and I really enjoyed it.
I hope all of them are in the stars, with each other and next to their respective lovers, so that they can be happy. The ending is sad, but at least one family stayed whole. This made me so sad however I am happy that they got their little house, and that they have happy memories with each other even during the wars. It really is such a beautiful story full of love and loss. I hope that none of the children will have to go fight.
The writer did an amazing job at describing their relationship. I love that there are historically accurate names and events in the book; It adds realness to the story.
In conclusion It is an amazing book and I really enjoyed it.
4.5 stars
Why this kind of books so beautiful and so sad/ cruel at the same time. Of course I cried like a baby.
Beautiful, awful, heartbreaking
Spoiler: I cried. I haven't cried reading a book since Me Before You. It's not quite as sad as that but it IS heartbreaking and it definitely makes you think about war and brotherhood and so many things.
I was really moved by all the characters and the author has kept really well to the universe the story lives in, which is always the most important thing to me.
Spoiler: I cried. I haven't cried reading a book since Me Before You. It's not quite as sad as that but it IS heartbreaking and it definitely makes you think about war and brotherhood and so many things.
I was really moved by all the characters and the author has kept really well to the universe the story lives in, which is always the most important thing to me.
"Eryx with his keen mind, and Axios with his kind heart. They each had what the other lacked, and together, they were whole."
So I had to create some fanart for these two lovers that you can see on my Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_YBHu8Hx8D/
They live on ⭐ (the idea for the art came to me after reading both books and while listening to 'Now we are free' from the movie Gladiator)
“Not even death could keep me from you. My soul will forever find yours. In this life and the next.”
So I had to create some fanart for these two lovers that you can see on my Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_YBHu8Hx8D/
They live on ⭐ (the idea for the art came to me after reading both books and while listening to 'Now we are free' from the movie Gladiator)
“Not even death could keep me from you. My soul will forever find yours. In this life and the next.”
This book gives us a detailed, moving, and intense look at the lives of two men, beginning as two boys, Axios and Eryx, who become friends at the age of 10 during training in 396 BC in Sparta. Spartan training was brutal and intense, as boys were taken from their mothers young and put into immersive military training, intended not just to give them skills, but to change their minds and personalities, molding them into the perfect soldier. And perfect meant obedient without conscience or personal choice, inured to pain and discomfort, hunger and abuse, willing to fight to the death on command, loyal to their bretheren but even more to their superiors.
Axios was a dreamy boy, strong enough but not particularly physical or skilled - the kind of boy who might not survive the training process, emotionally or physically. His admiration for and friendship with the golden boy Eryx is the thing that gives him strength to go on, and gradually the skills to improve. Seminal moments as a boy, when he must kill or be killed, or allow someone else to be killed, batter his soul, as physical abuse batters his body. The training does what it is intended to do, turning him into a soldier.
He and Eryx slowly come to realize that the friendship they feel is something deeper, and that the sex they eventually share isn't just a boy's need for an outlet, but precious and personal and unique. They are together most of the time, as part of a shared training unit, but there is always some risk of separation, injury, or death. And once they are adults, they have to take their place in a military at war.
The Spartans' deep bonds of brotherhood are intended to inspire units to fight together, but what these two men feel is something more. And with each encounter, each moment of danger, they have to deal with the fact that a sword may someday separate them, leaving one to go on alone. In addition, while sex between boys is not uncommon, they are expected as men to marry and have sons for Sparta. There are a dozen ways they could be ripped apart.
The strength of this story lies in the deep realism, the details of life as Spartans, the slow build of emotions, and the angst of having two soldiers in love, when war is a constant in their lives. This one doesn't have a HEA, but the path of their lives has a beauty in its inevitability. I was attached to both MCs, and despite the long slow build of the story, this kept me engaged with them to the last word.
Axios was a dreamy boy, strong enough but not particularly physical or skilled - the kind of boy who might not survive the training process, emotionally or physically. His admiration for and friendship with the golden boy Eryx is the thing that gives him strength to go on, and gradually the skills to improve. Seminal moments as a boy, when he must kill or be killed, or allow someone else to be killed, batter his soul, as physical abuse batters his body. The training does what it is intended to do, turning him into a soldier.
He and Eryx slowly come to realize that the friendship they feel is something deeper, and that the sex they eventually share isn't just a boy's need for an outlet, but precious and personal and unique. They are together most of the time, as part of a shared training unit, but there is always some risk of separation, injury, or death. And once they are adults, they have to take their place in a military at war.
The Spartans' deep bonds of brotherhood are intended to inspire units to fight together, but what these two men feel is something more. And with each encounter, each moment of danger, they have to deal with the fact that a sword may someday separate them, leaving one to go on alone. In addition, while sex between boys is not uncommon, they are expected as men to marry and have sons for Sparta. There are a dozen ways they could be ripped apart.
The strength of this story lies in the deep realism, the details of life as Spartans, the slow build of emotions, and the angst of having two soldiers in love, when war is a constant in their lives. This one doesn't have a HEA, but the path of their lives has a beauty in its inevitability. I was attached to both MCs, and despite the long slow build of the story, this kept me engaged with them to the last word.
informative
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
If you only have a slight if any interest in ancient Roman and Greek warfare and culture, it can be a bit of a slog. The first 1/3 of the book is like any other young friends to lovers story but once Axios and Eryx are young teens, it becomes very repetitive with the training regimens and, later, warfare and I just have no interest in the culture. However, for those very interested in history of this time period, it's a hearty recommend because it is impressive how much research and historical knowledge went into writing it. I ended up getting bored with 100 pages to go so skimmed that. It's also not a HEA story and the last few chapters were hard to read yet disappointing after putting so much effort into the rest of the book.
Sometimes the difficulty in writing a review for a book you loved is rooted in the fact that all the superlatives have become so cliché. An Epic Saga, Best of the Year, Action Packed, Sweeping, Heartbreaking, A Love Story for the Ages… All of those apply to Axios: A Spartan Tale, and so many more. Spanning a thirty-year period, beginning to The End, Jaclyn Osborn weaves historical fact with romantic fiction and produces a whole cloth that envelopes readers in the life of a Spartan soldier.
At the age of seven, Spartan boys entered the agoge, a system of rigorous training in the art of war. This was a young man’s destiny from the moment of conception, to birth, to the time he left his hearth and home and became part of a band of brothers. There was no room for compassion in a place that was meant to beat the softness from these young men, and many never made it to adulthood, didn’t survive to the age of twenty when they were then deemed old enough to fight for Sparta. Their life was servitude, and in some ways these soldiers were enslaved to king and country as much as the helots were enslaved to the people of Sparta, a perception more fully realized from the outside looking in.
In 396 BC, at the age of ten, Axios is already three years into his training, a regimen of discipline in body and mind—victory through pain, all for Sparta, love is weakness, fear is shame, spare no mercy for the enemy. But Axios is not a typical Spartan boy. He is a compassionate dreamer who longs for something other than war, and one of the more beautiful elements of this novel is watching Axios’ own battle in reconciling the obedient soldier with his dreams, which contradict everything he is meant to embrace. It’s not a fight easily overcome, and exemplified how Sparta meant to strip their soldiers of their individuality, if not their humanity as well, to transform them each into a well-honed weapon.
When Axios meets Eryx and the two boys form what becomes an enduring and unbreakable bond, readers are gifted with their love story for the ages, deeply emotional and spanning twenty-five years, throwing into stark relief the idea that it is the love between these two men, and for those whom they trust and embrace as brothers in arms, that forged them into the fierce warriors they became. It was the Sacred Band of Thebes, however, that embodied the idea that lovers fought more viciously because they were not only fighting against the enemy but were fighting for and to protect the man they loved. Some Spartans learned this as a matter of happenstance rather than practice, but learn they did.
The group of men who become Axios and Eryx’s family—Haden, Quill, Theon among them—worked their way into my heart, not necessarily because they’re all fully realized characters—some of these men have little page time and less dialogue—but because Osborn does a brilliant job of making them integral to Axios and, by extension, Eryx, and therefore they became important to me. Of course, there is loss, as one would expect in a novel filled with characters who are bred for war, and those losses cut to the quick. Some were a brutal hit to the bone, and the tears flowed unashamedly because I grieved those deaths. How could I not when I’d grown to love those characters so much? For Haden, Axios’ brother in arms and brother-in-law, and, I would imagine for some of the other boys and men as well, the deep bonds of love and friendship between Axios and Eryx altered perceptions, influenced lives, and inspired some to follow their example of a courage emboldened and reinforced by the abiding love they felt for each other.
Stripped down to the sum of its parts—a romance, historical fiction, or a hero’s journey, this book succeeds on all fronts. Every scene in this novel is crafted with an eloquence that in some ways is reminiscent of Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles. If you’ve never read that novel, it’s one of the highest compliments I can pay to Axios. If you have read that novel, then you’re more than familiar with the level of excellence this equates to. Trust me, I don’t compare books to Miller’s brilliance lightly. Some of the romantic passages Osborne crafted, however, evoke the same depth of love that Achilles and Patroclus shared, and when spoken by Eryx, a man not often given to emotion, those words resonate all the more.
The hardest part of loving a book is when you have to let it go and move on. Axios: A Spartan Tale is one of those books that has it all: romantic to the extreme, picturesque in a way only an accomplished wordsmith can achieve, with a warmth and a playful humor contrasting the merciless reality of war. This book is sure to go down as one of the best I’ll read this year.
Reviewed by Lisa for The Novel Approach
At the age of seven, Spartan boys entered the agoge, a system of rigorous training in the art of war. This was a young man’s destiny from the moment of conception, to birth, to the time he left his hearth and home and became part of a band of brothers. There was no room for compassion in a place that was meant to beat the softness from these young men, and many never made it to adulthood, didn’t survive to the age of twenty when they were then deemed old enough to fight for Sparta. Their life was servitude, and in some ways these soldiers were enslaved to king and country as much as the helots were enslaved to the people of Sparta, a perception more fully realized from the outside looking in.
In 396 BC, at the age of ten, Axios is already three years into his training, a regimen of discipline in body and mind—victory through pain, all for Sparta, love is weakness, fear is shame, spare no mercy for the enemy. But Axios is not a typical Spartan boy. He is a compassionate dreamer who longs for something other than war, and one of the more beautiful elements of this novel is watching Axios’ own battle in reconciling the obedient soldier with his dreams, which contradict everything he is meant to embrace. It’s not a fight easily overcome, and exemplified how Sparta meant to strip their soldiers of their individuality, if not their humanity as well, to transform them each into a well-honed weapon.
When Axios meets Eryx and the two boys form what becomes an enduring and unbreakable bond, readers are gifted with their love story for the ages, deeply emotional and spanning twenty-five years, throwing into stark relief the idea that it is the love between these two men, and for those whom they trust and embrace as brothers in arms, that forged them into the fierce warriors they became. It was the Sacred Band of Thebes, however, that embodied the idea that lovers fought more viciously because they were not only fighting against the enemy but were fighting for and to protect the man they loved. Some Spartans learned this as a matter of happenstance rather than practice, but learn they did.
The group of men who become Axios and Eryx’s family—Haden, Quill, Theon among them—worked their way into my heart, not necessarily because they’re all fully realized characters—some of these men have little page time and less dialogue—but because Osborn does a brilliant job of making them integral to Axios and, by extension, Eryx, and therefore they became important to me. Of course, there is loss, as one would expect in a novel filled with characters who are bred for war, and those losses cut to the quick. Some were a brutal hit to the bone, and the tears flowed unashamedly because I grieved those deaths. How could I not when I’d grown to love those characters so much? For Haden, Axios’ brother in arms and brother-in-law, and, I would imagine for some of the other boys and men as well, the deep bonds of love and friendship between Axios and Eryx altered perceptions, influenced lives, and inspired some to follow their example of a courage emboldened and reinforced by the abiding love they felt for each other.
Stripped down to the sum of its parts—a romance, historical fiction, or a hero’s journey, this book succeeds on all fronts. Every scene in this novel is crafted with an eloquence that in some ways is reminiscent of Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles. If you’ve never read that novel, it’s one of the highest compliments I can pay to Axios. If you have read that novel, then you’re more than familiar with the level of excellence this equates to. Trust me, I don’t compare books to Miller’s brilliance lightly. Some of the romantic passages Osborne crafted, however, evoke the same depth of love that Achilles and Patroclus shared, and when spoken by Eryx, a man not often given to emotion, those words resonate all the more.
“In all the ages, there has never been a love like ours. No one has ever loved another as I have loved you. If we fall today, my soul will find yours. For I am eternally yours… in this life and the next.”
The hardest part of loving a book is when you have to let it go and move on. Axios: A Spartan Tale is one of those books that has it all: romantic to the extreme, picturesque in a way only an accomplished wordsmith can achieve, with a warmth and a playful humor contrasting the merciless reality of war. This book is sure to go down as one of the best I’ll read this year.
Reviewed by Lisa for The Novel Approach
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes