Lore Olympus vol 1 & 2

[cornerofmadness]

Lore Olympus: Volume One by Rachel Smythe

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I struggled with what to rate this. I'll be honest I don't think it lived up to the hype. Was it a fun read? Yes. Was the art all that? No, honestly didn't like the art nor color coding the Gods (though I get it, royal purple for Zeus, sea green for Poseidon, cold blue for Hades etc)

Even in a modern update to Greek myth you're going to expect a certain level of dub/con and rape (because in case we're only familiar with this via Rick Riordan's cleaned up YA books, the Greek gods are a rapey bunch). I appreciated that Hades, at least, is not a rapist nor even kidnapped Persephone in this update (I also liked that Smythe included Persephone's other name, Kore)

What did bother me is Persephone still has almost zero agency. She's depicted as a nineteen year old girl fresh to college (we don't see much about this) and has an overbearing mother who has sheltered her completely (okay that's pretty spot on Demeter). But she really has not much will of her own. She's following the celestial virgin path because Mommy said so. She bounces around from one thing to another because of peer pressure. What she wants is nowhere in evidence.

At a party Artemis dragged her to, Persephone gets on the wrong side of Aphrodite (thanks to Hades) and Eros is dispatched to embarrass her and/or get her raped by putting her drunk to the point of semi-consciousness in the back of Hades' car.

Hades proves to be a gentleman but is now infatuated with her. The creepiest part of the story comes via Apollo and trigger warning, depicts something a lot of women are familiar with unfortunately, the intense pressure to sleep with someone. I'm not sure what was worse that or Artemis's blind spot where her brother is concerned.

Hades is hands down the least irritating character (because again the Greek pantheon is slammed with irritating deities) and I love that he loves dogs. I was intrigued enough to want to read on but on the other hand this isn't something I feel compelled to put into my permanent collection.



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Lore Olympus: Volume Two by Rachel Smythe

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Pretty much what I said in the first one. The story is engaging enough but the art still isn't my thing (though there are a few really nice panels, like Hades staring up thru Persephone's hands). The story does however drag quite a bit in the middle.

What I did like was Smythe is fleshing out Hades and Persephone much more in this and Minthe to a lesser extent. Hades has officially become the least toxic of all the gods in this. He's not perfect but the rest do set a really low bar.

Also I did like seeing Persephone starting to get some small amount of agency in this. Yes she's still letting herself be controlled by literally everyone which okay if we're taking her as actually nineteen that's understandable. She doesn't even much question why Hera would want her to work for Hades but she does fight for the opportunity which is about the best thing I've seen this girl do in two volumes.

On the other hand there is a huge amount of slut shaming in this (actually undeserved) that is off putting. Apollo is turning into a manipulative controlling creeper (who has not yet disclosed what he did to Persephone so I'm waiting for that shoe to drop).

I am still infatuated with Hades and his dogs. At this point you're rooting for him to have an actual love match for him vs actual myth.

Still interested enough to want the next volume but still not interested enough to add it to the collection.



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