You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.11 AVERAGE
4.11 AVERAGE
adventurous
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Premise:
Lia, the story's main female character, receives a mysterious and magical Ancient Greek chalice for her birthday, and becomes entangled with an equally mysterious man named August – a self-professed devotee of the Cult of Eros – who tells her the chalice can make any fantasy “come alive”. Both of them enjoy the Greek myths – for very different reasons, heh – and thus the book features Greek mythology-inspired sexual fantasies.
Review:
I decided to give this novel a go because:
a) It’d been a hot minute, or two, since I’d dabbled with erotica and wanted to see what was being done these days in the genre – outside of the "meme erotica" realm à la Ice Planet Barbarians. b) And because the premise sounded kinda neat, I guess?
But I really did not like this! I'll grant some of the sexual writing felt competent and effective enough. Okay. But there was also just a lot of painful cringe. Just painful cringe with the characters, the sex itself at times, the situations and... ugh.
Speaking of the characters: I absolutely hated the protagonists. August largely came off as a smug bastard; Lia, the spoiled daughter of kinky English nobles, runs an escort agency because she thinks it's fun or whatever and goes all Pikachu-faced when consequences happen. Putting aside her cringe, I’m just not about prostitution like this, and I was not about some of the cringy "commentary", nor the über-cringe Instalove™ bs this story features either.
Some of the vocabulary used to describe the sex was just a fat nope for me too: e.g. using the word “boy” in an adult description 🤢 – any mention of anything even remotely related to childhood in a sexual context is just the fattest of nopes for me, so that’s that. I was also mildly triggered by one scene but that’s, admittedly, not the text’s fault, and extremely personal so eh – more unfortunate than anything else.
No, what really killed it for me were the characters and the Instalove™. I hated everyone, the cringe of it all... and the decent-ish mythology-inspired sex scenes weren’t enough to compensate for that. As such, I wouldn’t particularly recommend this book to people looking for fantasy erotica, I guess... but then again this stuff is so deeply idiosyncratic you extra make of that what you will here.
Lia, the story's main female character, receives a mysterious and magical Ancient Greek chalice for her birthday, and becomes entangled with an equally mysterious man named August – a self-professed devotee of the Cult of Eros – who tells her the chalice can make any fantasy “come alive”. Both of them enjoy the Greek myths – for very different reasons, heh – and thus the book features Greek mythology-inspired sexual fantasies.
Review:
I decided to give this novel a go because:
a) It’d been a hot minute, or two, since I’d dabbled with erotica and wanted to see what was being done these days in the genre – outside of the "meme erotica" realm à la Ice Planet Barbarians. b) And because the premise sounded kinda neat, I guess?
But I really did not like this! I'll grant some of the sexual writing felt competent and effective enough. Okay. But there was also just a lot of painful cringe. Just painful cringe with the characters, the sex itself at times, the situations and... ugh.
Speaking of the characters: I absolutely hated the protagonists. August largely came off as a smug bastard; Lia, the spoiled daughter of kinky English nobles, runs an escort agency because she thinks it's fun or whatever and goes all Pikachu-faced when consequences happen. Putting aside her cringe, I’m just not about prostitution like this, and I was not about some of the cringy "commentary", nor the über-cringe Instalove™ bs this story features either.
Some of the vocabulary used to describe the sex was just a fat nope for me too: e.g. using the word “boy” in an adult description 🤢 – any mention of anything even remotely related to childhood in a sexual context is just the fattest of nopes for me, so that’s that. I was also mildly triggered by one scene but that’s, admittedly, not the text’s fault, and extremely personal so eh – more unfortunate than anything else.
No, what really killed it for me were the characters and the Instalove™. I hated everyone, the cringe of it all... and the decent-ish mythology-inspired sex scenes weren’t enough to compensate for that. As such, I wouldn’t particularly recommend this book to people looking for fantasy erotica, I guess... but then again this stuff is so deeply idiosyncratic you extra make of that what you will here.
emotional
lighthearted
fast-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:
No
emotional
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Wow. This is amazingly well done.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
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