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Janeeny (200 KP) rated The Iliad in Books

Jun 10, 2019

Personally I think this should have also counted towards my classic read for the month aswell, but hey, I don’t make the rules . . oh, wait . .
For those of you not in the know The Iliad is Homers epic poem about the Trojan war, this version was translated by EV Rieu.
What can I say about this, without sounding like a complete philistine? It is essentially a Soap Opera based around testosterone fuelled macho men and a bunch of Gods having a hissy fit! I loved it!

Crivens, there’s a lot of people in it though!! It did take me a little while to get into it, and being a little rusty on my Greek mythology I kept forgetting who was on whose side, but I eventually found my stride, and if you can wade through all the different ways that different people were killed (Homer does really like describing how each person died, potentially the Tarantino of his day!) It is a really detailed account of a mythological war that inspired a whole wealth of literature, and I can see why it is a classic.

Kudos

LynetteMcC (0 KP) rated Trickery (Curse of the Gods, #1) in Books

Nov 17, 2018

Character development (2 more)

Good female protagonist

World development

Main character questionable decisions (0 more)

What a refreshing take on the reverse harem genre

Well this was a nice surprise. I’ve only recently started enjoying reading reverse harem novels and find they can be a bit on the cringe side of things. Either there’s too much mushy sentiments or it’s straight into the sex talk right off the bat. While there is some of this here, there’s actually some nice development of both Willa, the gods, sols and worlds.
The abcurses are well fleshed out as individuals even without having full knowledge about them straight away. You don’t grind your teeth or blush everytime they appear on the page, which is a plus.
I’d say if you liked hearing about the Greek gods when you were younger (or now even) and enjoy a kind of hunger games type world then this could be the book for you.
It’s a book I felt comfortable reading in public and I’d say to an extant older teens would be fine reading this as it’s not overtly sexual, at least in this first book ?

Kudos

Rachel Maria Berney (114 KP) rated Norse Mythology in Books

Dec 4, 2018

Norse Mythology

Neil Gaiman | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry

8.4

(38 Ratings)

Book Rating

Gives you an overview of Norse mythology (0 more)

It is a little boring, a struggle to read (0 more)

A little informative and interesting

Contains spoilers, click to show

I love Neil Gaiman. I was so excited to read this book as I really enjoyed American Gods and jabe a love of Viking history. Right before reading this I read Stephen Fry's Mythology, unlucky for Neil and me. I can't help but compare the two and Gaiman's Norse Mythology comes up short. Whilst we do have access to more information of Greek myth than Norse myth, I don't think that's the entire reason that Norse Mythology is a hard read. The telling of the Norse stories doesn't have the flow I have come to expect from Gaiman, there is a strangled growth to it that makes for a choppy reading that is just hard work and not that enjoyable. Gaiman's style and what I enjoy about him is too constrained in this retelling of Norse myths, this may be due to a lack of evidence of Norse myth and history. I think it would have worked well online, as blog posts etc. As a book it is something easily put down, forgotten about and never finished.