A review by litsleaze
Psyche and Eros by Luna McNamara

3.0

First, I want to say thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins for providing this e-book for me to review.

I will admit that this is my first Greek mythology, retelling book, and honestly, I believe it’s a perfect beginner, friendly book to begin with. It wasn’t too complicated with the back history of the various characters that range between psyche, Zeus, Medusa, Atlanta, and many others, and provided really great brief introduction to the characters and the mythology overall.

From what I’ve read in my own research about Psyche and Eros is that this is a very loosely translated retelling of their story. I see that there has been some major changes to their story but overall, if you look at this book as a standalone for these two characters — I believe it works. This story basically tells us about a mortal female, who has great feminist qualities that make her a great protagonist and main character and then the story of a slightly narcissistic Greek god named Eros. Eros was basically demanded by Aphrodite, to bring a curse to Psyche , but with his clumsiness, he accidentally casts the curse on himself.

I believe this book could’ve done a bit more emphasis on the relationship building for the two characters because it did not pull on my heartstrings like I wanted it to. There was a great chance to really make a wonderful love story, but I believe that was missed. The pacing of the book was great as I was completely sucked in by chapter 2, so the writing is definitely top notch there. Overall I believe this is a solid effort for the retelling of these two characters, but would’ve like to see a bit more swoon worthy prose to make the reader fall in love with the characters.