• i think bob should’ve gotten a medal too

-multiple times in this book i thought they were going to use the gingerbread man to send a message and he was actually going to speak and say “run run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me!”

-overall i really enjoyed this book! t. kingfisher just has knack for taking ordinary people and making them strong, relatable characters that somehow succeed in some insane scenarios

a few things you need to know about me to understand my review:

• i used to compete in state competitions where my specialty was latin literature w an emphasis on poetry -i spent a whole year in high school analyzing about the aeneid -i took a class in college where for the entire semester we did a close translation on just book 4 (which chronicles the love story of aeneas and dido) -and i have both read and written fanfiction about virgil’s work (me and dante are the same fr)

in short: i dont play about the aeneid

sustain me muse as i write this review: the main issue with this book is that the couple is just so boring that i had to hyperfocus on the details of the fictional story “the gates of the gods” just get through this book. i really liked april at the beginning, when we saw her in her career as a geologist, but as the story progressed all the development of her starting a new job and moving up w her career, fell to wayside to focus on the relationship w marcus.

the only interesting about the relationship was that they were secretly friends online for years before the actually meet. but the author gave it all up way too quickly (literally on the first date). having marcus find out that april was his online friend caused him stop talking to her online full stop. for the rest of the book we just get dated conversation. if the secret was kept longer it would’ve fun as the reader to see them chat to each other about one another and give us some comedic irony. instead for most of the book i want to strangle marcus for keeping it a secret.

and the reveal was just so unsatisfying, it came at a weird time pacing time as well. they don’t even properly make up, they each do some navel gazing, they never actually talk to one another about the breakup and how they can move on as a couple, and then publicly declare their love for each other at a convention.

the author tries rlly hard to make them interesting by forcing parallels between april & marcus and lavinia & aeneas. and it kind of works because april clearly sees lavinia as her own self-insert. she does this by sprinkling in excerpts of aeneas/lavinia fanfiction… but the fake fanfiction is BAD like so so bad im convinced the author has never actually read a fic on ao3, has lived exclusively in wattpad and tumblr land (but rlly what can expect from straight, canon compliant ships)

part of the reason it doesnt work is becuase the fanfics have no real substance to go off. the show is supposed to be a bad adaptation of the books, which are supposed to be a good interpretation of the aeneid… but its not. we barely get any excerpts from the books. and we really just told and never shown all this grief and angst aeneas is supposed to feel. and he’s rlly just this deeply complicated and traumatized character who’s destiny is at the whim of the god. and we’re just supposed to trust it.

and the thing is aeneas rlly is all that and more in the epic. but the author doesn’t include actual aeneid in conversation w the rest of the adaptations. and its would’ve done wonders in explaining the depth of the fake characters and why the mcs would feel connected to them.

bc riddle me this author of the author of “gates” where the fuck is creusa in all this? yk creusa, aeneas’ first wife that he looses as he’s trying to escaped the sacked city of troy. the wife he is unable to save because he was had to literally carry both his father and son to safety. the wife that appears to him as a ghost and tell him to that he will marry another woman. and as a matter of fact where is his son, ascanius?

the author completely ignores the fact the story is about rome’s founding myth, its never mentioned once, and this detail is so important to who aeneas is as a character and the protrayal of aeneas’ love interests (creusa, dido, and lavinia). even a little tidbit of how the books changed virgil’s lavinia (who never even speaks mind you) to someone w an actual personality.

there is not even aeneas’ shield. no little sliver of how this epic is simultaneously propaganda for and a critique of the roman empire…

tl:dr: if you’re going to use a two millennium old poem as a basis for your couple maybe actually try to understand why the story still resonates with people to this day

si scis, scis