Scan barcode
A review by brittemira
The Dark Wife by Sarah Diemer
2.0
Sapphic man-hating retelling of Persephone’s myth sounds like everything I have ever wanted BUT:
- Pacing was so off
- Low-stakes and severe lack of dramatic effect
- One-dimensional characters (except for Hades, whom we would all die for)
- everything is too easy, so the point of Persephone developing as a brave strong independent queen doesn’t really come across
- important plot points happen in a few sentences, but other things we are hit over the head with excessively in monologues that all sound pretty much the same after a while (e.g. Zeus is a dickhead, it’s so dark in the underworld, Zeus is a liar, I shall be strong independent woman, Hades=the best person in the world, Zeus is a bad bad man *sad angry noises*)
- other plot points are just never developed
- ending is meh and nothing is wrapped up
- overall this reads like a decent fanfic with some pretty words but even then the writing is not atmospheric enough to really redeem it
so anyway two stars, one for the sapphic fluff and one for Hades
- Pacing was so off
- Low-stakes and severe lack of dramatic effect
- One-dimensional characters (except for Hades, whom we would all die for)
- everything is too easy, so the point of Persephone developing as a brave strong independent queen doesn’t really come across
- important plot points happen in a few sentences, but other things we are hit over the head with excessively in monologues that all sound pretty much the same after a while (e.g. Zeus is a dickhead, it’s so dark in the underworld, Zeus is a liar, I shall be strong independent woman, Hades=the best person in the world, Zeus is a bad bad man *sad angry noises*)
- other plot points are just never developed
- ending is meh and nothing is wrapped up
- overall this reads like a decent fanfic with some pretty words but even then the writing is not atmospheric enough to really redeem it
so anyway two stars, one for the sapphic fluff and one for Hades