A review by justabookholic
The Art of Love by Ovid

3.0

An odd read, I came into this book not really knowing any specifics on what it was about except it was a book of Roman poetry and what I got was... what could be best described as a collection of intentionally (from my interpretation) bad romantic advice that was mostly geared toward men. Two-thirds of the book was used to give "instruction"to men on how to seduce women. I got the impression early on that the prose were meant to be satirical and it was stated on the back that it was "mock-didactic elegy" so the mentions of assault and getting both parties drunk (trigger warning: there is mention of rape) were more to be a criticism than actual sound advice. I did find that certain parts made me laugh out loud due to the ridiculousness of it but there was a fair amount of the prose where the false "instructions" given by Ovid was just too irritating to me. I wouldn't recommend it to those who don't enjoy satire or is unfamiliar with Roman mythology as it does mention a great deal of legends, Roman Gods, and other notable Roman figures in the book. The translation was also a bit too modernized for my taste but it did lead to a few laughs so take that to account and this edition does include the original Latin right beside the English translation.