A review by cupidcove
Destroyer of Light by Jennifer Marie Brissett

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

While I found this book interesting, especially for about the first third of the story, there were a couple of problems with the writing and narrative that made it impossible for me to give this book over three stars and recommend it broadly to others. The first, and most immediately apparent, was the writing style. This book reads, at points, as almost fanfiction-y, oscillating wildly between being incredibly verbose and overly simplistic, often directly stating characters feelings. At first I thought that this was because of the shifting perspectives and in part that seems to be the case, but then there are chapters in which, within the chapter, the style shifts in this same way. Overall, it seems somewhat amateur-ish and the story would have been much improved by taking to heart the writing advice we have all recieved, to "show not tell." Secondly, the pacing of the ending goes completely off the rails and I wish we would have spent more time examining both what actually happened to Cora at the end of the book and the impacts of it. As it is now, readers see the world radically change without a strong understanding of what that changing actually entails. If we had spent more time world-building earlier on in the novel this fast paced ending could have felt more earned because readers would have understood what was happening, but as it is not I think some kind of change needed to be made. Finally, the depiction of graphic sexual violence against a child was somewhat excessive. While I understood the need for the description of this violence's occurance for the reader's understanding of Cora's choices late in the novel, the graphicness of this depiction seemed a bit too gratuitous and I wish there would have been some distancing of the reader from this violence. I understand the potential arguments one could make for the detailed depiction of this violence in some cases, but in this instance it felt unnecessary and I wish that the author would have portrayed the violence in a different way, as I think that the gravity of those experiences could have been understood through less detailed description. 

As a side note, I feel that this book being pitched as a Hades and Persephone retelling only does a disservice to this book. People who come to this novel looking for a Hades and Persephone retelling will not get it, please look into the actual content of the book. While this didn't bother me, I could see how someone may feel like they are not getting the story they were sold. 
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