A review by kellysavagebooks
Winter Harvest by Ioanna Papadopoulou

dark tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Demeter is goddess of the harvest, of food and growing things. But when her beloved daughter Kore is taken from her, she finds she is also a goddess of famine and of lack. 

This book has FLAWS, and we will get to that, but I loved so much about this book and will never again think of Demeter without thinking of this Demeter. 

This Demeter is the goddess of divine feminine rage. The rage of being minimized, dismissed, abandoned, swallowed up, raped, confined, and controlled by men. The rage of living in a system of oppression that you did not sign up for or consent to, but that you cannot opt out of. The rage of having a body that is viewed as a receptacle, an object, a source of male pleasure and a site of male violence before it is viewed as a dwelling place. The rage of female relationships torn apart by men wedging themselves between, pitting women against each other, making it unsafe for women to commiserate or even warn one another, creating a world where women must rely on men to survive, never mind get anything done. The rage of women despising other women and themselves for the things they do and the ways they shrink themselves to survive the patriarchal world they cannot seem to change. 

This book is a justification of that rage, but not of the harmful effects it can have on bystanders and innocent parties. Demeter is deeply unlikeable and, in some ways, deeply unsympathetic, but she’s fascinating to watch. 

Okay, now for those flaws I promised. This book suffers from a lack of editing and, I suspect, a lack of practice in craft. Papadopoulou has written some short fiction, but this is her debut novel, and it shows. The plot isn’t just slow-moving and meandering—that alone will never get criticism from me—but it sometimes feels aimless, even random. Demeter’s actions don’t always align with her motivations, and there’s a lot of repetition in her arc—now there’s a monster in me, now it’s coming out, now I’m more the monster than I’ve ever been, even though I’ve said that seven times in this book…You get the picture. Much is told in narrative summary that absolutely should have been shown in scene, which takes away from the impact of those moments, and character feelings and motivations are always, always explained by our narrator. The prose is often awkward (which, if you regularly read my reviews, you know is important to me, so let it be a testament to how much I loved what I loved that this book is still rated so high) and is littered with typos. I really, really wish this book had been allowed to germinate longer, to really mature into what it could have been, and then been subjected to rigorous editing. This could easily have been a five-star new favorite if it had been. 

All in all, I have to recommend this book if you’re interested in Greek mythology. This retelling gives such fresh, new perspectives on the gods and their mythos, and is cathartically full of rage. It’s poignant and harrowing, and the beginning—when the Olympians have been swallowed by their father and are living in his stomach—will stick with me. There’s much to love and a lot of skill and dedication here, and I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for what Papadopoulou does next. 

ARC provided by Ghost Orchid Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 
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