Reviews with content warning for Rape - Lies We Sing to the Sea

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Lies We Sing to the Sea by Sarah Underwood

88 reviews

mirandyli's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

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

4.25

This was a beautiful story perfect for fans of queer Greek mythology. Very heartwrenching.

I thought this book was going to subvert the “kill your gays” trope, but in the end, a queer character does die. It isn’t a happy ending.

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shay_talksbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

2.0

Lies We Sing to the Sea follows the story of Leto; one of 12 girls that are sacrificed in Ithaca each year for Poseidon. However, death isn't what Leto thought it would be and she awakes on an island with a girl able to command the seas, and a plan to break the curse.

I found it really hard to rate this book, and I've changed my rating on it a handful of times already - but I think I've settled on 2 for now.

Let's start by saying that this isn't really a retelling, but more of a continuation of the Oddessey and what happened after Odysseus returns. Unfortunately, it wasn't a very good one. There were quite a few plot holes, and many moments where I questioned whether the author knew the original myth she was adding on to, or if she'd just skimmed some notes and picked a few names/moments she liked the sound of and found a way to shove them into the story.

The whole book was also far too long; it was so, so slow and almost 500 pages of nothing really happening for the majority of it. It's not until the last 50 pages or so that anything occurs, but I did enjoy the ending, and that redeemed 1 star from me for a book I was so close to DNFing most of the way through.

The

love triangle

was completely unnecessary and took centre stage in the book, above the actual plot. It was pitched as a sapphic fantasy romance mythology retelling, but it was more like a

badly-represented bisexual romance (with a main character who just couldn't choose, ugh)

romance novel with a few names from mythology chucked in.

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scary_blue92's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

Wow! Just wow! I'm ashamed that this has sat on my TBR for almost 2 years because wow! An emotional roller coaster through my favourite myths that just about finished me off by the end

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dmdeacon's review against another edition

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dark sad

Plot- or character-driven? Plot

3.25

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rhiaintheclouds's review against another edition

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medium-paced

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

1.0

1☆.

honestly. this should've been a dnf.
i really wish the author chose to promote this story as inspired by the odyssey rather than a retelling b/c maybe then my opinions would've changed.

Leto as the main character? Extremely frustrating. Extremely wishy washy and a terrible bi-rep if that's what was happening. Melantho was literally just always pissy or trying to be sassy but it was honestly just annoying. Surprisingly Mathias was literally the only character I could tolerate.

i was pretty much irritated throughout the story, and i couldn't even fully grasp the story. it was so messy. pacing was all over the place and this was a highly anticipated read for me back when it first got published. sigh.

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savleigh98's review against another edition

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The story seemed to be dragging, I would listen to the audiobook for what felt like hours only to realize it had only been 20-30 minutes. The premise is strong but the book is taking too long to get to any action or conflict. Too many scenes are people staring at a room or at each other making unimportant observations for paragraphs at a time.

The book starts with a girl being hung to death

and then comes basically to a halt.

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