Reviews with content warning for Incest - Percy Jackson's Greek Gods

Reviews tagging 'Incest'

Percy Jackson's Greek Gods by Rick Riordan

17 reviews

_forestofpages's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Phew, you can tell from the content warnings how wild the Greek Gods are. As someone who has read the Bibliotheca, this was definitely a much more entertaining and digestible way to read about the twelve (major) Gods of Greek Myth. And obviously since it is written to be family friendly, that a lot of it was watered down.

I don't love how biased Percy is towards his father since there were several instances where what he was describing was his dad raping women, but called it 'cuddling' and hardly had anything bad to say. However, he did do that with Zeus as well which is odd since he pretty much hates the guy. (obviously, Percy is fictional and I am talking about Riordan here).

Overall, I enjoyed this a lot and will be continuing into the Greek Heroes as told by Percy Jackson.

Content Warnings

eagleshouse's review against another edition

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adventurous funny informative medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Despite Riordan's success with the other books set in this universe, this one falls short.

Making the Greek God's stories family-friendly is a job and a half, and unfortunately, whilst this book is fun and informative, with that classic Percy Jackson flair with him as the narrator, it definitely feels tone-deaf in places with how it explains certain events.

Greek mythology at its core, is based on incest, rape, and misogyny. This book trivialises a lot of that and definitely excuses it in order to make the Gods more bearable in the main series.

Overall, this book was fun to read, despite being slightly uncomfortable in places. It probably shouldn't have been written, especially as a kids book, and could be seen as insensitive in regards to how it conveys the events.

Content Warnings