Surprisingly, I quite enjoyed this book and given my low review of Stone Heart, as well as the fact that i DNFed both Wicked Beauty & Cruel Seduction, I’m a little shocked at that.
This was a quick read for me, finished within two days of acquiring a copy. This book held my attention quite well and I was eager to see it through til the end. Besides the Stone Heart novella, this was my quickest read of one of Katee Robert’s works. I completed Electric Idol sometime back in early January but don’t remember exactly how long that took me.
I enjoyed the overarching plot a LOT more in this book than I did the previous one. It made the parts in between the smut scenes a LOT more bearable.
I think what works so well in this series in particular is when there’s less POV switches. I feel like the max number of POV changes you can have in a book like this before things start to get all muddy is three. My problem with the last book is that there were so many character POV’s that the inner character conflicts were so thinly veiled and all blended into “I shouldn’t trust this person because they did xyz, but I will anyway” and there’s only so much of repetitiveness I can take before I get bored.
At least with this book their inner conflicts are different from each other, with some overlap. Individually, Charon has his stuff with Hades and protecting the lower city, Eurydice deals with becoming her own person, no longer living in the protective bubble that her sisters and mother made for her. Lastly we have Orpheus dealing with being cut off from his family and still trying to deal with the consequences and atonement of his actions toward Eurydice.
I never read Neon Gods but I have completed two other titles and read a handful of chapters from two others. I feel like the insta-love trope works for Eurydice and Charon’s story because they’re in the background of so many other’s. Although I haven’t seen any major developments in their relationship in the other installments of this series, their foundation is there along with her relationship to Orpheus. It’s already pre-established so their feelings of affections don’t feel as out of left field like they did in Cruel Seduction and Stone Heart.
This is a personal preference but i’m glad it was Orpheus put into the submissive puppy play position and not Eurydice because depending on how it was handled, I might not have finished it otherwise.
I’m not too invested in the kink scene and was unaware that there would be puppy play in this installment. That being said, if you’re looking for lots of BDSM, this book isn’t for you. Besides a few mentions of being taken over someone’s knee and spanked with a paddle and a scene or two of Orpheus crawling on the floor while sex then ensues there’s not much kink in this book.
Also I feel like the smut scenes are getting shorter and shorter as the books continue. Maybe that’s just me, but I swear the smut scenes in Electric Idol were a lot more fleshed out.
Onto my dislikes, I know I praised this book for having a pre-established relationship between Eurydice and Charon as well as Eurydice and Orpheus, but outside of that, the pacing feels off. All that happens in this book occurs in less than a week, I genuinely think it all takes place within the span of four days. It’s not so jarring to me that I’m completely taken out of the story but enough for me to actually take note of it.
I feel as the series progresses, the endings become more and more open ended, leaving me with more questions than answers. I never finished Cruel Seduction but I skipped to the ending where someone was shot and in the hospital then Aphrodite and Hephaestus step down from their roles. Nothing is ever mentioned of their whereabouts or what happens to them in this book and this book ends in a similar manner, with Charon in the hospital and Eurydice and Orpheus there surrounding him. It makes me think that each of these stories in particular needs its own sequel book to fully wrap up their stories and not leave me questioning what happened.
All in all, this was an enjoyable read, a lot more interesting than its predecessor. I’m glad I didn’t decide to completely give up this series. I won’t be reading through Dark Restraint but if Katee ever publishes a book about Zeus and Hera, i’d definitely be interested in giving that a read.