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katie0528's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
Leto is born on Ithaca, home of the famed Greek hero Odysseus. However, hundreds of years earlier, Odysseus offended the god Poseidon by executing his wife's Penelope's maids. Poseidon curses the land, creating a yearly tradition where the people of Ithaca sacrifice 12 more young women. Leto, is unfortunately one. After her violent execution, Leto wakes up on an island, home to the mysterious Melantho, a girl who died much the same way as Leto. Melantho reveals that the only way to break the curse is to kill the prince of Ithaca, Mattias, so the two girls disguise themselves as Matrias' betrothed and her maid. Unfortunately, killing a prince is easier said than done, particularly when he's handsome, charming, and also desperately wanting to break the curse. I spent the whole book hoping this would turn into a throuple situation, but alas I was disappointed.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, Grief, and Murder
Moderate: Child death, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Death of parent
jessicohen15's review against another edition
adventurous
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I speed ran through the second half of this book and was surprised to see the pages fly by. The cadence picks up as the plot reaches its climax and I really enjoyed the themes of friendship, trust, and some gay love. My first step into mythology :)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Sexual harassment
batbaby's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
hopeful
mysterious
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? It's complicated
5.0
I often read multiple books at once but i couldn’t stop reading this. I was always thinking about melantho and Leto wondering what they could do, what they would do next, if their plan would work. The voice acting was beautiful and perfectly fit the characters. I will miss these characters and will be thinking about them for a while. Definitely one of my favourite reads this year so far
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Blood, and Death of parent
Moderate: Animal death
kkalicky94's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Rape, Sexual content, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, and Murder
lesemaus2303's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
I loved every bit of it!
Almost didn't want to finish it because i didn't want the story to end. Emotional and so thrilling.
Almost didn't want to finish it because i didn't want the story to end. Emotional and so thrilling.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
pau0704's review against another edition
adventurous
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? It's complicated
1.0
This book is like dumpster on fire. Very entertaining to watch at first because of the chaos, then it's just meh.
Fist of all there's absolutely nothing about Greek mythology on this book, just the false advertising claiming it to be a retelling of the Odyssey (which is absolutely not). I came across it after I read song of Achilles and was looking for something similar, I may add, nothing similar to it.
Overall, the book makes no sense, the plot makes no sense, the "curse" makes no sense, the solution makes no sense. It's very frustrating to see the whole thing developing under no foundations for anything.
Also, the main character's very infuriating, she's an assh*le to both secondary characters, idk if the author was trying to make her morally grey, but God, I hated her and how she used the two people who cared about her because she could control her hormones. Ver very bad LGBTQ representation (or bi representation). Felt like I wasted my time reading this, also, the book is not hard to read but took me so long to get through it.
Fist of all there's absolutely nothing about Greek mythology on this book, just the false advertising claiming it to be a retelling of the Odyssey (which is absolutely not). I came across it after I read song of Achilles and was looking for something similar, I may add, nothing similar to it.
Overall, the book makes no sense, the plot makes no sense, the "curse" makes no sense, the solution makes no sense. It's very frustrating to see the whole thing developing under no foundations for anything.
Also, the main character's very infuriating, she's an assh*le to both secondary characters, idk if the author was trying to make her morally grey, but God, I hated her and how she used the two people who cared about her because she could control her hormones. Ver very bad LGBTQ representation (or bi representation). Felt like I wasted my time reading this, also, the book is not hard to read but took me so long to get through it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Blood, and Death of parent
Moderate: Infidelity, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Grief, and Murder
l6zarras's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape and Death of parent
dejahentendu's review against another edition
hopeful
3.0
It was an interesting extension of the Odyssey, focused on the fall out of his punishment of the serving women he murdered after retuning home.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Death of parent
Moderate: Rape
lyall_reads's review against another edition
sad
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? It's complicated
1.5
1.5/5, rounding up because it’s objectively better quality than most things I rate 1 star.
Because I love reading about vicious, complicated sapphics and I hate review-bombing, I gave this book the benefit of the doubt only to end up angrier at it than I have been at any book for a while. I was with it for about the first third, but when they got to Ithaca, everything imploded.
I won’t blame the book for the poor marketing- I knew going in it was not an Odyssey retelling, despite the marketing. I also knew it wasn’t going to be well-researched going in but was fully ready to just treat it as a Greek-inspired fantasy world; as long as the world feels cohesive and fantastical, I can let go of a lot. Underwood, however, made the baffling choice to both under-research AND tie the story to a clear time period. There’s reference to the Peloponnesian war and I am no scholar of Ancient Greece (I was more of a Rome-obsessed kid) but even I remember from seventh grade history that Athens was a democracy at that time. There’s so many weird little things like that which add up. I don’t think it was a good move to tie the world of the story to actual history; it would have been much better to have had less time have passed since the Odyssey and tie it more closely to the mythic world.
The biggest problem: I didn’t like Leto. It’s okay to not like every character in a book, but I felt like I was meant to like her and I just didn’t get it. She’s impulsive, bloodthirsty at strange moments while refusing violence in others when peoples’ lives depend on her, and she’s a cheater. I grew to hate her as I saw how she treated Melantho. There’s a world where she talks things through with her and there’s some ethical non-monogamy or more run-of-the-mill love triangle stuff where she’s not with either of them, but nope. No communication allowed! There are people like Leto out there, who act selfishly and chose to view actions taken with men as not cheating on the femmes they’ve made a commitment to- I’ve even been in a relationship with one of them!- but they are not fun to read about as what I think was meant to be a likeable main character. I’m all for letting queer character be messy (that was my favorite part of Love Lies Bleeding!) but there wasn’t a strong enough bedrock of character underneath Leto’s off-putting decisions. She ended up feeling more like the ‘cheating bisexual’ archetype than a fleshed-out flawed person, and I hate that.
I did like Melantho, but as soon as she meets Matthias, she becomes off-puttingly jealous and possessive. We, the readers, know Leto is thinking about cheating on her constantly, but Melantho doesn’t yet. Without the insight we have into Leto’s thoughts, it doesn’t make sense for her to immediately view the man she and Leto ARE PLOTTING TO MURDER primarily as a romantic rival. She’s right, but she couldn’t know that yet so her actions felt out of character and like a writing mistake more than anything else.
This book also hits my pet-peeve- all women besides the main character (and in this case, the love interest) are either dead or evil. We have the dead, good women who shaped Melantho, Matthias, and Leto: Ophelia, Thalia, Selene, Timo; and we have the evil women: the queen, Olympia, the romantic rival. We also get some child girl characters, but it seems if they’re not Melantho or Leto and reach adulthood, a woman becomes either evil or dead and I HATE that.
Pros: the audiobook narrators were great! I liked Underwood’s writing style quite a bit and found it to be very readable. There’s a few fun, claws-out, wlw moments. Melantho and Mathias have a nice bonding moment I appreciated.
TLDR; don’t read this. Read the Penelopiad for a feminist angle on the Odyssey and the story of the maids’ murder. Read The Midnight Girls or An Education in Malice for YA/NA fantasy with feral sapphics.
Because I love reading about vicious, complicated sapphics and I hate review-bombing, I gave this book the benefit of the doubt only to end up angrier at it than I have been at any book for a while. I was with it for about the first third, but when they got to Ithaca, everything imploded.
I won’t blame the book for the poor marketing- I knew going in it was not an Odyssey retelling, despite the marketing. I also knew it wasn’t going to be well-researched going in but was fully ready to just treat it as a Greek-inspired fantasy world; as long as the world feels cohesive and fantastical, I can let go of a lot. Underwood, however, made the baffling choice to both under-research AND tie the story to a clear time period. There’s reference to the Peloponnesian war and I am no scholar of Ancient Greece (I was more of a Rome-obsessed kid) but even I remember from seventh grade history that Athens was a democracy at that time. There’s so many weird little things like that which add up. I don’t think it was a good move to tie the world of the story to actual history; it would have been much better to have had less time have passed since the Odyssey and tie it more closely to the mythic world.
The biggest problem: I didn’t like Leto. It’s okay to not like every character in a book, but I felt like I was meant to like her and I just didn’t get it. She’s impulsive, bloodthirsty at strange moments while refusing violence in others when peoples’ lives depend on her, and she’s a cheater. I grew to hate her as I saw how she treated Melantho. There’s a world where she talks things through with her and there’s some ethical non-monogamy or more run-of-the-mill love triangle stuff where she’s not with either of them, but nope. No communication allowed! There are people like Leto out there, who act selfishly and chose to view actions taken with men as not cheating on the femmes they’ve made a commitment to- I’ve even been in a relationship with one of them!- but they are not fun to read about as what I think was meant to be a likeable main character. I’m all for letting queer character be messy (that was my favorite part of Love Lies Bleeding!) but there wasn’t a strong enough bedrock of character underneath Leto’s off-putting decisions. She ended up feeling more like the ‘cheating bisexual’ archetype than a fleshed-out flawed person, and I hate that.
I did like Melantho, but as soon as she meets Matthias, she becomes off-puttingly jealous and possessive. We, the readers, know Leto is thinking about cheating on her constantly, but Melantho doesn’t yet. Without the insight we have into Leto’s thoughts, it doesn’t make sense for her to immediately view the man she and Leto ARE PLOTTING TO MURDER primarily as a romantic rival. She’s right, but she couldn’t know that yet so her actions felt out of character and like a writing mistake more than anything else.
This book also hits my pet-peeve- all women besides the main character (and in this case, the love interest) are either dead or evil. We have the dead, good women who shaped Melantho, Matthias, and Leto: Ophelia, Thalia, Selene, Timo; and we have the evil women: the queen, Olympia, the romantic rival. We also get some child girl characters, but it seems if they’re not Melantho or Leto and reach adulthood, a woman becomes either evil or dead and I HATE that.
Pros: the audiobook narrators were great! I liked Underwood’s writing style quite a bit and found it to be very readable. There’s a few fun, claws-out, wlw moments. Melantho and Mathias have a nice bonding moment I appreciated.
TLDR; don’t read this. Read the Penelopiad for a feminist angle on the Odyssey and the story of the maids’ murder. Read The Midnight Girls or An Education in Malice for YA/NA fantasy with feral sapphics.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Rape, and Death of parent
captainchloe__'s review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
I was reading this book thinking it was YA, and I will say the content towards the end got quite graphic so just be aware of that. Also, as many have said, it's not a retelling. It's a reimagining of what could have happened next. My main issue with this book is that some aspects of it were not historically accurate - one of the characters, in ancient Greece, uses the phrase "Latrine" which is a Latin word in origin?? As a classicist who focused on politics in ancient Greece, I also haven't read the Odyssey fully, like the author 🤣🤨, but I aim to one day be that confident and have that much audacity.
Overall, if you can look past the audacity, I enjoyed this book, the plot was interesting and the characters were engaging. It was a bit teen drama at points, but overall it was a... It was a read. I read it. Yay. And finally, between the halfway point and the end, it was clear that Melantho's eyes were, in fact, green, and did not change colour.
Overall, if you can look past the audacity, I enjoyed this book, the plot was interesting and the characters were engaging. It was a bit teen drama at points, but overall it was a... It was a read. I read it. Yay. And finally, between the halfway point and the end, it was clear that Melantho's eyes were, in fact, green, and did not change colour.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Misogyny, Sexual content, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Death of parent