A review by niffler_for_words
Hera by Jennifer Saint

challenging informative inspiring tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

“All she knows is that he leaves a trail of broken women on his wake. And she is the most broken of them all. It makes her dangerous. And he knows it”

I listened to the audio version of that book. I truly enjoyed how the narrator read the text. It felt like a monument, a long and epic poem and truly helped to get immersed in J. Saint’s prose deeper. 

Even if I love deep mythology retellings, where events are often completely different from the legends we have, I liked how here the motives are more discussed than the actions. Hera is a very complex character and we go through her whole story. All her contradictions and the way she processes events are deeply human (the fact that she overanalyzes human behavior wasn’t lost on me, and is a great mirror of her own character). Through the pages, we develop empathy for Hera. Not because she’s overly sympathetic (she remains very gray, and that’s this novel’s force), but because we learn why she acts like she does. She is the first victim, the first reduced to silence. She sees her life and her hopes collapse one after the other and reacts like she believes she has to. And, like all of us, she makes mistakes. 

Which makes her very human, and opens the book’s question, identity. What defines us? Our enemies? Our family? The people who watch us? Their expectations? How do they interpret our actions? 

With its very beautiful prose, in addition to narrating Hera’s story to us, this book incites us to question about ourselves. 

Thank you NetGalley, Jennifer Saint and Headline Audio/Wildfire for the ALC. My opinions are my own