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dizie_lizie's review against another edition
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, and Gun violence
cleverbaggins's review against another edition
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
I don't usually rate books super badly. Usually I just assume it's not for me and move on. This is one of the few books I've read that I actively hate.
I was so excited for this book. So hopeful. The content warnings needed to be 100% more specific. It is graffic and Grim and without hope. Only a couple of the characters are likeable and they're treated horribly by the main characters.
I thought this book was going to be clever. I thought the scifi aspects, the variety of species and cultures would be explored. They weren't.
This is a book that wanted to say a lot and tried the hardest and most complicated way to do it and then what it had to say was horrible.
It's advertised as matrix and a hades/persephone retelling. What the author is missing is that the darkness in both of those has hope. Has people fighting for right. Has love and the rise of a new future. This book has none of it.
I'm actively angry. This book made my skin crawl. There was nothing explored that should've been and I regret all the people I suggested it to when they wanted more retellings. You couldnt pay me to try another of the authors works.
I was so excited for this book. So hopeful. The content warnings needed to be 100% more specific. It is graffic and Grim and without hope. Only a couple of the characters are likeable and they're treated horribly by the main characters.
I thought this book was going to be clever. I thought the scifi aspects, the variety of species and cultures would be explored. They weren't.
This is a book that wanted to say a lot and tried the hardest and most complicated way to do it and then what it had to say was horrible.
It's advertised as matrix and a hades/persephone retelling. What the author is missing is that the darkness in both of those has hope. Has people fighting for right. Has love and the rise of a new future. This book has none of it.
I'm actively angry. This book made my skin crawl. There was nothing explored that should've been and I regret all the people I suggested it to when they wanted more retellings. You couldnt pay me to try another of the authors works.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery, Sexual violence, Rape, Violence, Trafficking, Religious bigotry, Racism, Xenophobia, War, Toxic relationship, Torture, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Sexism, and Misogyny
venealosille's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, War, and Child abuse
Moderate: Deportation and Addiction
boocwurm's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
An Afrofuturistic retelling of the myth of Persephone set on Eleusis, a new planet where humans sought refuge after aliens attacked Earth. The book jumps through time and perspectives to follow three interconnected storylines: A young girl is kidnapped from her agrarian community by a violent warlord; Genetically modified twin brothers use their unnatural gifts to search for a missing young boy in Eleusis’ city; A young woman navigates her relationship with a powerful man and the destiny he hopes she’ll achieve.
There was a lot to unpack in this book. Brissett explores dynamics of race, class, identity and what it truly means to be human—demonstrating how humanity may evolve and escape terror, but certain societal horrors might persist. The Kresge, the alien race who initially attacked Earth, have settled onto Eleusis alongside humans, and their motives are unclear. I found many parallels between the human/Kresge dynamic and the dynamic between Black/Indigenous peoples and white colonizers and enslavers, exploring ideas of righting past wrongs, deeply rooted distrust and persisting power systems. Having gotten through the plot and world-building on the first read, I’d like to revisit this book later to explore these ideas more deeply.
The multiple storylines are very separate in the outset—spanning a decade—but move closer and closer together as you near the end. At first, these time jumps were a little confusing, but nothing more than your average time-jump book. I was much more confused by the shift in perspectives. The POV changes from first to third person at seemingly random times. Even by the end, I couldn’t quite grasp the intentionality behind the first-person sections… The worldbuilding was also a bit confusing, although we got there by the end. The author introduces new terms in early chapters and then explains them in depth in later chapters; I wished some of these explanations had come a little earlier so they’d mean more to me during the story’s foundation.
I liked the characters and their relationships quite a bit. Cora, the main character throughout, is a strong and powerful person who doesn’t let others’ desires for her path define her. If you know the Persephone myth, many of the characters and story tidbits will seem familiar to you, and I quite enjoyed those callbacks (and I’m sure there are many I missed). I also quite liked the author’s writing style. She uses a lot of artful repetition toward the end that I felt really brought the stories together into one cohesive narrative.
Overall, this was a clever sci-fi tale that examines much more than the usual, asking us to examine humanity with a new backdrop.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual violence, and Murder
Moderate: War and Kidnapping
whiteraven191's review against another edition
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Child abuse, and Pedophilia
cupidcove's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
While I found this book interesting, especially for about the first third of the story, there were a couple of problems with the writing and narrative that made it impossible for me to give this book over three stars and recommend it broadly to others. The first, and most immediately apparent, was the writing style. This book reads, at points, as almost fanfiction-y, oscillating wildly between being incredibly verbose and overly simplistic, often directly stating characters feelings. At first I thought that this was because of the shifting perspectives and in part that seems to be the case, but then there are chapters in which, within the chapter, the style shifts in this same way. Overall, it seems somewhat amateur-ish and the story would have been much improved by taking to heart the writing advice we have all recieved, to "show not tell." Secondly, the pacing of the ending goes completely off the rails and I wish we would have spent more time examining both what actually happened to Cora at the end of the book and the impacts of it. As it is now, readers see the world radically change without a strong understanding of what that changing actually entails. If we had spent more time world-building earlier on in the novel this fast paced ending could have felt more earned because readers would have understood what was happening, but as it is not I think some kind of change needed to be made. Finally, the depiction of graphic sexual violence against a child was somewhat excessive. While I understood the need for the description of this violence's occurance for the reader's understanding of Cora's choices late in the novel, the graphicness of this depiction seemed a bit too gratuitous and I wish there would have been some distancing of the reader from this violence. I understand the potential arguments one could make for the detailed depiction of this violence in some cases, but in this instance it felt unnecessary and I wish that the author would have portrayed the violence in a different way, as I think that the gravity of those experiences could have been understood through less detailed description.
As a side note, I feel that this book being pitched as a Hades and Persephone retelling only does a disservice to this book. People who come to this novel looking for a Hades and Persephone retelling will not get it, please look into the actual content of the book. While this didn't bother me, I could see how someone may feel like they are not getting the story they were sold.
As a side note, I feel that this book being pitched as a Hades and Persephone retelling only does a disservice to this book. People who come to this novel looking for a Hades and Persephone retelling will not get it, please look into the actual content of the book. While this didn't bother me, I could see how someone may feel like they are not getting the story they were sold.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse and Rape
story_goblin's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
This book is very intense. It’s about finding our own voice through everything that has happened to us. Despite the way she was raised, despite the abuse she suffered, through it all, the protagonist made her own decision in the end. Due to some of my own experiences, it was important to me to see her choose which aspects of her upbringing and abuse to reject and which aspects to mold into her chosen self. I am generally wary of stories that involve abuse because most oversimplify the healing process and/or over-focus on the trauma. This book did neither of those things. It does not pull punches about her abuse, but it also does not spend pages detailing the horrific details. It does not victim-blame, but it does allow the victim to be a complex, complicated person. Who are is not solely dependent on what happened to us, nor is what happened to us insignificant in the crafting of ourselves.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Kidnapping, Sexual violence, Adult/minor relationship, Trafficking, Rape, Child abuse, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Addiction, Bullying, Drug abuse, Racism, Drug use, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Religious bigotry, Genocide, Xenophobia, and Classism
goldenluck's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
This wasn't really a Persephone retelling. It was kinda just edgy trauma porn. The bad guys in the end made no sense. The actual bad guys (the racist rapists) got no ending and no punishment. The main character didn't get any justice and never left her abusive relationship. It just kinda started sad, got sadder, ended sad. It sucked.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape and Domestic abuse
kndavis's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Child abuse, and Trafficking
Moderate: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, and Rape
mybooknookandme's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
4.5
Bipoc author.
Sci-fi - humanity trying to co-exist on a new planet with aliens that once destroyed earth
Sci-fi - humanity trying to co-exist on a new planet with aliens that once destroyed earth
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, Rape, Drug abuse, and Sexual assault