“In order to have a future worth fighting for, you must have a past worth remembering.”

Overview Oh, man. I mean, what can I say that hasn't already been said? This book was everything it's described as: beautiful, heart-wrenching, enrapturing. And quite funny too! I didn't expect it to have as much dry wit as it did, but that was a big bonus for me as sometimes humor added to fiction can lean a bit heavy handed. That certainly wasn't the case here, though.

I have found that a lot of fantasy and/or romantasy tends to take a bit for me to truly get into it. Usually because the beginning has a lot of lore drops and worldbuilding to get through before the action begins—which I understand—but as much as I was expecting that here, it never came. Harrow's style of writing immediately drew me in. She has a way of writing that feels captivating and evocative without feeling pretentious. Not a word feels wasted.

The Romance I know second person POVs in fiction can be polarizing, but I think it worked exceptionally well here and added another layer to the story. It made the book read like an ode or like a love letter passed between the main characters. And in many ways, it was! The romance isn't the entire focus of the plot, but it certainly is a large part of it. Harrow did something highly skillful here in creating a love story that truly felt like something eternal, something ordained. It's not a love that's easily held in one's hands, it's one Harrow makes you work for, but it's also one that our characters fight and claw for again, and again, and again. And again.

I also loved that neither of our MCs fit into traditional gender roles in their real lives or within their relationship. It was the first time, I think, that I've seen a heterosexual presenting relationship in a book truly feel stripped of binary. It was unbelievably refreshing.

Also, Owen is an eater—rejoice!

What Didn't Work As Well for Me Time travel is a hard thing to get right in books, and I think that Harrow did well; However, my rating was lowered slightly as I felt there were a few inconsistencies in the way it was described to work here. I also wanted a bit more explanation on the initial magic that kind of fueled this whole story to begin with. It's discussed, certainly, but I wanted more as the explanation still left me asking okay, but why?

Conclusion Other than the very minor instances mentioned, this book was breathtaking. It was my first Alix E. Harrow book, but I don't foresee it being my last. If you like dark fairy tales, muscular lady knights, wiry scholars, and a romance that's hard-won, The Everlasting is for you.

Audiobook Narration: 4.5 🌟 This book was dually narrated by Moira Quirk (Blood Over Bright Haven, Gideon the Ninth) and Sid Sagar. They were both phenomenal! They both were also particularly well-suited to their characters and they navigated emotionally-charged scenes beautifully. I did have to occasionally speed up or slow down my listening speed depending on who was narrating at the moment, but it didn't really detract from the experience all that much.

Favorite Quotes

• “I loved you by then, or would soon, or always had. It was inevitable, foretold: When I look up, I will see the sky; when I fight, I will win; when I meet Owen Mallory, I will love him.”
• “Let us lie here forever. Let us be buried as wild things are, by tooth and claw and worm. Let the grasses grow up through the sockets of our eyes. Let them find us in seven years or seventy, and let their brows furrow, because they cannot tell my bones from yours.”
• “Because no throne is held easily, or for long; because a nation is a story we tell about ourselves, and stories change, if you let them. Because where there is power, someone will oppose it.”
• “Take me however you want. Use me cruelly or kindly, as you like. Command me, if you can.”

This book sat like a boulder in my chest.

It's a story about magic, grief, a plague, marriage as endurance, a mother's love, and a man who was made entirely on the backs of the women in his life.

Maggie O'Farrell writes as if she's taking a slow stroll through the world she's creating and cataloguing everything she sees; from the tall grasses and the wildflowers studded between them to the tiny dust motes suspended within a sunbeam. Everything, no matter how big or small, gets a moment of observation and meditation on its mere existence.

Every thought a character has is held in their palm and turned this way and that, until all sides and corners have been closely studied and all possible nuance has been wrung out. This type of storytelling certainly doesn't lend itself to a rapidly moving plot, but it does create a story that rewards patience and contemplation.

O'Farrell has an ability to write grief in a way only a handful of authors I have come across have been able to, and I'll always be grateful (and a little heart-sore) for having experienced it. I'll leave a link 🔗here to my forum post that discusses that part of it a bit more.

Overall, a really beautiful reflection on loss, family, and the women who create these idolized men but are seldom rewarded for it.

Listen, minotaur erotica is going to be polarizing. You're either going to think it's hot or you're going to find it deeply off-putting. Even seasoned monster romance readers will draw a line here. Personally, zero of my complaints for this novel have anything to do with the fact that the MMC is a minotaur with very clear non-human features, and all of them are about the writing/plot itself, so this review is mostly going to be a rant about things I found annoying.

The main issue I had with this book was how (I assume) inadvertently anti-sex-work it all felt. The whole premise is that our FMC needs to make some extra money, so she goes to work at a "milking farm", which is exactly what it sounds like. It's meant to be a semen donation center for minotaurs, and it is very adamantly labeled as not sex work; It's simply a clinical establishment that exists out of medical necessity.

The FMC repeats this mantra to herself multiple times to make what she's doing 'okay' in her head, which already feels odd to me because why would it be so bad for it to be sex work? But okay, fine, it's “not sex work”. The semen donation is the main point, got it. But then she's immediately trained on how she needs to prioritize the client's pleasure and how she needs to cater the experience to each specific client's tastes/kinks/turn-on's/etc. as they're written in the client's file.

Now, maybe I'm attributing too many real-world expectations onto this story, but in an actual clinical semen donation center, you might get a magazine or a video to watch and you kind of just have to make do with that. Your donation is the primary goal, your pleasure in coincidental. In this book, though, the opposite is true. Sounds pretty sex-work-adjacent to me!

There are certain clients that are called "earners", and they are a bit more clinical about it. They show up to donate and get paid and that's it. This feels more on-par with how the clientele should be at a donation center. But, see, then we have the "good little cows". In these sessions, the technicians are expected to wear literal fetish gear (milkmaid costumes) and verbally play into the Mommy Dom fantasy the clients have by praising them as they're being milked. SOUNDS LIKE SEX WORK TO ME.

If there was a situation where the clients could choose either a quick, clinical donation or a session with a sex worker then I think this premise would have worked better, because in its current state it's claiming to be something it's not. Also, the technicians look forward to when there's sessions with the earners and dread their sessions with the minotaurs that are actually getting sexual gratification from the experience because they feel uncomfortable, so I feel like by not labeling it as sex work that everyone is opting into it's just kind of putting the technicians in a position where they have to accept being sexually harassed as a part of the job.

And then you add in the fact that Violet (FMC) is also getting sexual gratification from her sessions with Rourke (MMC). And again, if this is just a medical facility, then you as an employee should not be getting turned on by the procedure you're performing. To me, this reads as a similar situation to if I went to the gynecologist and my doctor was getting aroused by performing the exam. Clearly you shouldn't be in that profession if that's your reaction to it. Now, if this was sex work with a medical play aspect to it? Completely different. Because the consent to receive mutual pleasure from the session is established. So, I wish that instead of trying to have this pseudo-woke take of "nooo it's just a natural bodily function it doesn't have the same sexual connotation", the author just called it what it was.

And, sure, maybe the ethical implications of it all aren't meant to be taken that seriously, because at the end of the day it is minotaur smut. But erotica ≠ unintelligent/incapable of nuance, and it's clear a point was trying to be made, it just wasn't made effectively.

The aforementioned was my main gripe, so I'll put the rest in some quick bullet points:

• There was a lot of language about humans gradually infiltrating the town they're in specifically to fuck monsters because human cock just couldn't possibly compare to monster cock that all felt very akin to racial-fetishization but with a different font.

• A lot of conversations/dates between the MCs were told in retrospect, so we don't see them grow as a couple. We're just informed afterwards that they've already gone through all the prerequisite getting-to-know-you stuff, which made the characters feel extremely flat. We're told that sex has "little to do with" their connection, but then that's literally all we see of their relationship.

• "Meaty balls" was used as a descriptor more than once, but even once was way too fucking much.

Honestly, if you want a monster romance that's pro-sex work and isn't fetishy, I'd read Yours, Insatiably by Aveda Vice instead and skip this altogether.