A review by ylmpastmidnight
Lore by Alexandra Bracken

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

4.0

Content Warning: Death, Cancer, Violence, Sexual Assault, Implied Pedophilia, Murder

This a story where my mood reading kicked in. I borrowed this book as an ebook on my kindle app a month ago and 21 days later it expired with me only getting through 5 pages. Yes…I was not in the mood to read it at all. A month later, I’m at the library and browsing the shelves and see Lore staring me in the face. I tell myself this time I WILL read it in time, and I read it in one day! Why now? I’m not sure…

Let me say what I always say about books that deal with Greek Mythology. It’s easy for me to get lost because I don’t relate much to the Greek Mythology even though we’ve had to studied some of them in high school. The stories are epic sure, and I remember Troy the movie because Brad Pitt is in it but other than that – I can’t keep all the names straight, except Zeus. So reading Lore, I had to be patient with the info dumping of bloodlines and such – there are A LOT. Once my brain got situated with some of the characters, it latched on for the wild ride of this story.

In this story, Zeus created these games the Agon, that commences every 7 years and the hunt takes place during 7 days. Anyone who kills a god in these 7 days will gain their power but if they accomplish this task, in the next Agon, they will be hunted next and so forth. The last time Lore experienced an Agon she was only 10 and something traumatic happened that haunts her every day. She’s learned to channel that fear and rage onto the fighting mat where she takes down opponents with her fighting skills. But the new cycle of the Agon is about to start and this time, they have found her.

I enjoyed all of the characters in this story. Lore with her warrior, kick-ass skills and rage- she has a lot of trauma she’s living with. Miles her best friend who is Korean and queer and knows NYC like the back of his hand. Castor, Lore’s best friend from long ago who is now the new Apollo. Van, Castor’s best friend who is the tech-genius and queer as well. Athena, the goddess who is trying to win the Agon by making an alliance with Lore. All the characters were fleshed out and I loved their interactions. I like how each of them had their own beliefs of what happiness was to each of them whether it meant being with a friend through thick and thin, vengeance, freedom, pursuit of a Father’s love, pursuit of power, or just trying to understanding a gift that is given. The story explores themes of sacrifice, power, friendship and love.

It’s a fairly long book at under 500 pages, but I felt like it moved fast because there were a lot of action scenes. Be warned, this is a dark story with lots of violence, blood shed, necks and other body parts getting chopped off, these are warriors, gods and hunters fighting one another. There is implied pedophilia and these archons run a Patriarchial society where females can’t even become archon of their own bloodline, although they have gods like Athena and Artemis. I did like how the villains were written though.

There is a little bit of romance, but it is not the main focus of the story but it is sweet. Like I said before it’s greek mythology so there can be a bunch of info dumping at times, there were a few times I googled certain names! The point of the Agon is confusing in the first few chapters but I grasped the concept the more I read. 

Final Thoughts:

My first attempt at reading this book was a no-go. I didn’t think I’d pick it up again, but I guess the time was right and I wanted to delve into greek mythology right now haha. I enjoyed the characters a lot and uncovering Lore’s secret and past life kept me reading. The action kept the story moving quickly. The villains in this story are absolutely villainous and done well. The romance is a sweet best friends to lovers trope. I felt Lore’s sense of a found family with Miles, Castor and Van. I enjoyed it despite some confusion in the beginning and a bunch info-dumping.

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