subparsunlight's Book Journey

this book completely took my breath away! such a tender, thoughtful rewriting of the odyssey with sapphic angst, feminist critique, and a focus on class struggle. the length was a bit daunting at first, but every page was absolutely necessary to effectively pace out this absolute beast of a story!

ughhhfhhfuughhhhfuhfhhhhhhggh. ugh. this could’ve been so GOOD. i’m not at all against modern language in historical fiction, so long as the modern language is at least… interesting, and serving some sort of thematic purpose idk. here, the modern language is just boring and reads as honestly i hate to say it but lazy. it is completely devoid of subtlety or subtext. it is obviously a fanfic to a degree, but it reads like bad fanfic - the characters it borrows and tries to reimagine from their classical origins are flattened, made into girlbosses and evil villains, characters that have been studied for generations bc of their complexity are here rendered one dimensional and somehow boring?? the romance could’ve been so lovely, and i wanted to enjoy it i really did (i love lesbians! and classics!) but i just… idk i was bored by them!!! it was too easy, and idk something abt their romance felt way too contemporary! i was waiting for them to start calling themselves lesbians and wearing pride pins!! idk guys i’m sorry it wasn’t for me