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You wouldn't believe how many times someone tried to reveal to me a "fun fact" about greek myths without knowing/remembering where the information came from

"From the award-winning author of Herc, an enrapturing feminist tale that brilliantly reimagines the story of Aphrodite and how she transformed herself from a lowly outsider to the darling goddess of love, for readers of Madeline Miller and Jennifer Saint."

Judging by the 3.9 stars rating, these readers hated it

Seriously this book has such a very juvenile writing that it's not wonder this achieved the incredible mark of getting bellow 4 stars on GoodReads AND on Amazon, that tends to have more kind reviews

Why Chaos and Nyx talk like teenagers on Netflix?

We have a time skip of Aphrodite being trapped in a cave for maybe months, because for some reason the writer Phoenicia thinks we would want that for the second chapter 😐

This book about Titans and Olympians living in mythological ancient Greece has many characters using curse words like they're americans on Twitter

The Atlas chapter: Atlas walks around looking for Ouranos testicles, finds the cave of notAphrodite, she throws a rock at him, they have some argument about what she is and then Atlas get's angry and strangles her

Aphrodite's chapter: Prometheus heards about a mysterious figure living in a weird cave and decides to go there, notAphrodite makes him promise that Atlas won't appear anymore and for the next few weeks they talk? And sometimes flirt? The book tries to pretend there's a romantic mood between them, but it's hard to believe

We don't actually see the flirting, the narrator just says there was flirting at some point in a very bland conversation

There's a Metis chapter. Because no editor told/convinced the writer that it was a bad idea

Of course we have the male deities being all brutes with little intelligence

And they're sexist too to showcase how Metis is superior

And of course we have the dreadful nicknames

How tf you reached the conclusion that Eros needed a nickname? Woman, his name is only TWO syllables!!!

So in this story Zeus isn't being raised by Gaia?

Why there's a yatch in the background?

"For readers of Circe and The Song of Achilles, here is a Greek myth retelling that finally asks, 'What does the goddess of love have to learn about receiving it?' "

Wish these writers would understand that not everything needs to be made with Madeline Miller as reference

Ai generated image on the cover

Well that's quite a original premise

Well it's there

"A sex symbol of the most influential, fetish in the eyes of the mens and the gods.

The most beautiful of roses, but with the sharpest thorns.

But what if she was much more than that?"

She was always more than that, but retellings constantly ignore her other domains

Is easy to see that this was written by a 17 years old

That's not a compliment

Of course we have an overuse of curse words

"Ares is known for being violent. Of all the men who exist on this earth, I had to choose this one."

Why she's acting as if Ares is the worst choice of boyfriend?

Also this Hermes is worse than the myth Hermes at flirting with Aphrodite

"You could fuck all the mortals you wanted, but you knew that the gods were forbidden to you!"

What kind of dumb requirement for divorce is that?

"The Olympian's Gala is THE ceremony of the Greek Gods. This gala is a global event, so it couldn't be more publicised."

You couldn't come up with a different name for this event?

"I love my freedom, and I will only leave it for true love, not for a one-night stand. And I feel like she's slipping through my fingers. My freedom that I craved so much. I don't want my life to be in the hands of a man, and especially not a violent man."

Aphrodite absolutely adored Ares

She was more violent than him

That's as far as the sample went

So in this story Aphrodite had to wait hundreds of years until Zeus allowed her to divorce Hephaestus. One night, she get's very drunk in a club, Ares takes advantage of that to have sex with her. By the next day, Zeus discovers what happened due to a paparazzi and decided to basically force her to be Ares' company at a Gala party. Aphrodite then cries many times over the possibility of being forced to be with Ares who here is just "the violent" god

A "feminist" wrote this 😐

The writer is miss lucine

Being raised for the sole purpose of being a glorified maid is sad. Yes, the actual priestesses weren't like that, but almost no retelling bother to read how they actually worked

"Perfect for readers of Madeline Miller's Circe, Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne, and Natalie Haynes' Stone Blind."

Lazy references

The book probably was removed from Amazon but whatever

That's as far as the sample went

Ai generated image on the cover

"Medusa represented an unwelcome anomaly in Ceto's previously spotless record."

Stheno and Euryale are quickly removed from the narrative and of course Ceto and Phorcys don't like Medusa 😑

"The head Man himself, Zeus, who always liked to keep one immortal eye out for comely mortals, reminded himself to check back on Medusa in eighteen to twenty mortal years. His wife, Hera, likewise set a mental note to check in with her husband in eighteen to twenty mortal years."

...that's so gross. Zeus wasn't counting the days until he was legally allowed to sleep with Medusa. In fact the vast majority of Olympus didn't care about her

"Medusa was rarely graced by the direct attention of her family. Visits of unrelated sea immortals were mainly to confirm the anomaly of her mortality and beauty and to have a bit of a giggle at her expense."

Now she's being bullied by other sea deities for being a pretty mortal

She's being raised by a random mortal couple because at the time they were childless

I forgot their names because honestly they don't matter and have no clear personality trait beyond not liking Medusa due to her parents

"When Medusa reached age twelve, keeping young men otherwise occupied became an increasingly difficult endeavor. She tried to spend more time in the sea, but fish and sea gods were also lured to her, and she gained the attention of myriad uncanny creatures of all genders."

Are we supposed to ignore that young mortal men and very old deities are going after a 12 years old girl?

"Eventually, she decided to make her way to Athens to try her luck at becoming a priestess at the temple of wise Athena. It bothered Medusa that she couldn't come up with a better idea than serving in a temple; which was not really her idea at all, but she speculated she would think of something better on the way."

...

So the plan is to just go to the entrance of the temple and ask to join?

I think she's like 17-18 at this point

"Pretty little thing, aren't you? That must have been a disappointment to your mother, but not to me."

Do you see why these books aren't that innovative? Medusa is always a pretty girl harassed by men, ignored by her family and 99% of the time Poseidon is a antagonist from the first scene

"Athens? That is it's present name. I may choose to reclaim that territory one day."

You know that Poseidon got over the dispute for the city, right?

Quite rare to see Thoosa being mentioned

"In Athens, in the city's most sacred temple, a young priestess with wheat-colored hair has mastered a skill no one has taught her: to return every gaze with firmness, never lowering her gaze first. Athena herself notices her, and makes her a promise that seems like a gift: as long as you serve this temple, no one will be able to touch you."

This skill is pathetic

Medusa never lived in Athens

Athena would never make such promise

"She isn't alone forever. In the Sorority of the Discarded , a refuge for women transformed, betrayed, forgotten by the gods, Medusa finds what no temple had ever truly offered her: a place to be, without having to justify herself."

Oh, it's the women's shelter bs again 🙄

Perfect for those who loved Madeline Miller's Circe , Pat Barker's The Song of Achilles , and The Silence of the Girls : Greek mythology reinterpreted with an empathetic, feminist, and unforgettable voice.

I feel like there's something wrong with the references

"Medusa once served Athena beneath a roof of cedar and gold, waking before dawn to light the sacred lamps, wash the altar, and sing hymns to the goddess she believed embodied wisdom and justice.

Now Medusa lives alone within the ruins of the sanctuary she once loved.

Told in haunting first person, it blends Greek mythology, psychological horror, body horror, divine cruelty, feminine rage, tragic fantasy, brutal combat, and the terrible loneliness of being transformed into the crime committed

For readers who enjoy feminist mythology retellings, Gothic Greek tragedy, morally complex heroines, monstrous women, dark fantasy horror, mythological horror, lyrical prose, grimdark tragedy, and stories that reclaim the silenced voices behind famous legends."

Trust me, it's not as engaging as the synopsis claim

"The poets carve me into their verses as a lurking horror, a jealous maw in the dark, a thing that delights in the stiffening of flesh and the closing of mortal eyes. [...] They say I was born monstrous, perhaps because in comforts them to believe monstrosity announces itself early.

Better that, surely, than admit a girl may enter a temple in white linen and leave it cursed for the crime another committed against her."

It's really annoying when retellings pretend as if it's morally wrong to treat Medusa as a monster since birth

"Brave, foolish, beloved Ione, who had shared figs with me in the dormitory and whispered jokes during prayer until both of us shook with forbidden laughter. She refused the story told by the priests. She refused to believe I had become what rumour required."

So we have random dead sapphic love interest whose entire character is to praise Medusa

It might be because I developed apathy for this character, but reading any Medusa retelling never made me cry of feel anything positive for her

"A modern retelling of the Medusa myth set in a snake-handling church in Tennessee in the summer of 1920 as they vote to ratify women's suffrage for the entire United States."

I have no idea of what's going on

"The last witness to a dynasty woven with the curse of the high gods...

A resolution taken for the sake of passion, the mortal stroke dealt unto a brother,"

"ulu master of wine", no wonder this book has a different synopsis now

She isn't a silent woman.

This book hates Pasiphae, for some reason

"My mother, Queen Pasiphae, was condemned to dwell in the most remote, sunless chambers of the palace, her reason utterly extinguished. When night draped the palace in stillness, there would arise from the depths of those dark corridors my mother's bestial whispers and delirious ravings, interwined with agony."

I don't think even the greco-roman writers made her like this

"I grew up, a solitary princess, starved of affection. I was a child forced to prefer the coldness of stone walls to the warmth of a mother's embrace."

So her sisters and brothers(bar Androgeus) are basically gone from the narrative?

If the bull is immortal, how can it be sacrificied?

"Whilst Asterion was yet a tender child, his honors not yet fully grown and his frame retaining the delicacy of youth, I had found occasion to behold him from afar."

Yeah sure whatever

"Beneath that massive, jet-black bull's head, there lay no monstrous hatred, but warm human eyes filled with tears of fright, seemingly imploring for mercy."

...🙄

Ps: what you're seeing is the old version. At some point the "writer" decided to change huge parts of the story

And by huge parts I mean the book now has 311 pages

"The underground prison is home to the minotaur, a bull-shifter so feral and violent, he has never been allowed to walk the streets of our city.

Or so the legend goes. Nobody who's seen him has ever lived to tell the tale."

Kinda of a modern world

"Zeruhn is a lab created shifter gone wrong."

I don't have words to explain how dumb this is

"And if that means bargaining away her hand in marriage, let it be done.

And Dionysus is no longer sure he wants his prize of trading away her hand of marriage.

Was it hate at first sight—Or a chance at eternal love?"

It's hilarious how the synopsis pretends there's a suspence just for the next paragraph to say this will be a happily ever after

Dionysus on the cover and Dionysus on the above image barely match

"When I bartered for a taste of mortality, I enjoyed a humble life as a farmer's son, but I still rank far higher than any of them in the created order."

What?...

"I must come when summoned by my true name and I have to enter bargains when one is offered— though we Primordials may negotiate extensively before agreeing, which is only fair since we must complete our end of the bargain or perish."

That's a stupid rule

Ariadne isn't a very intelligent protagonist. She summons Dionysus while semi-naked and get's annoyed that he can see her body. Woman, you could have called him after getting dressed

"I am a princess; not one of your priestesses. They may be free to entertain your frivolity and flattery, but I have the weight of a kingdom on my shoulders. I have summoned you because I require a hero worthy of legends."

But priestesses weren't expected to sleep with the god they served. That was actually really unlikely to happen

Look at this atrocity

Ariadne is such a imbecile that she believed calling a deity her prisoner would somehow turn him to her side

"『I wasn't talking about marrying you. Earth, seas, and firmament, no!』 Ariadne jams her finger against my chest again. 『I mean you could have the hand in marriage to bargain away as your kind likes to do.』"

So Ariadne wants to Dionysus to confront the Minotaur, who here is a god-killing creature for the "prize" of... setting her up with some random

Is she stupid? Seriously 😑

"But since I am his only daughter, the sole princess of Crete, Minos determined I was too precious of a commodity and demanded the price to be paid to him for the honor of my hand."

So I guess Phaedra, Akakalis and Xenodike ceased to exist

"She betrays the palace that shaped her, mourns the brother the world called monster, and flees across the sea believing love will carry her into a new life."

Ok then

The sample goes up until chapter 2

"he touched two fingers to her brow and named her Ariadne, uttering the syllables as if sealing them into stone."

It's quite crazy how rare it is to see a retelling where Pasiphae and Minos don't treat Ariadne like trash from the start

"Ariadne would lean into her mother's lap and ask whether gods could love without harming what they touched,"

Girl, you're not even 7 years old. Where this question came from?

"as she answered that the gods were vast and that mortals were small vessels beneath sudden rain."

That's a bad analogy

And Androgeus isn't her only full brother!!

Yes, the bar is set that low

"and in that single glance she felt not only terror but loneliness so deep it seemed older than the palace itself."

Sure girl 😒

"Instead she took her daughter's hand and held it between both of hers, saying that the gods could make a wound from a queen's body and a king's pride, and that children should not have to carry the sins of those who came before them."

Does that read like something Pasiphae would say?

You know, it's quite refreshing to see a book that doesn't beg me to cry over the Minotaur

"The world calls her the girl who saved Theseus and got left sleeping on a beach for it. The cautionary tale. The warning they tell girls so they stay small. She is here to put the ending right."

It's not a warning telling girls to stay small, it's a warning about misplaced trust

"For readers of Lore Olympus, A Touch of Darkness, and morally-grey, villain-era Greek retellings that leave the rage in."

Lore Olympus was trash, refuse to read A Touch of Darkness and there's nothing morally-grey about this book saga

Chapter 2 will be annoying

Why tf these people took a child to hear the Minotaur?

"I did it in the only place my father could not hear, the inside of my own head, which is the one country a girl in a house like mine ever fully owns."

Thea Marlowe, there's a limit in how many times you should repeat the "princess that had a easy life is actually opressed" plot, you know right?

"But I was the clever one, and in a house like ours clever is a more dangerous thing for a girl to be than beautiful, because beautiful get's you married off and clever get's you used."

I mean, if you want to be known for intelligence, you have to accept that people will be telling you to use that ability

"Jennifer Saint's Ariadne is a mesmerizing debut novel for fans of Madeline Miller's Circe."

Bad sign

Dramatic start 😑

"It shone proudly on my neck when we attended Daedalus' wedding, a mighty feast hosted by my father, who was delighted that Daedalus made his alliance with a daughter of Crete—another tie holding him here, allowing Minos to boast about his exalted inventor. Although his wife died giving birth to their son before they'd been married a year, Daedalus took comfort in the baby, Icarus,"

Mother characters are more likely to die in retellings than in the actual myths

"Gods might enjoy mortal skill in hunting or music or weaving, but they were always alert to hubris—and woe betide a human whose skills came close to those of the divine. Something that immortals could not tolerate was to be inferior to anyone in any respect."

They could tolerate mortals being very good at something, just don't brag too much

I'm starting to notice that a lot of Ariadne retellings pretend as if her mother was this kind peaceful woman stuck with Minos instead of the crazy witch goddess who once cursed her husband into ejaculating scorpions

Some time ago was listening to this song and the idea came

Aegisthus was raised as a upper class guy, in the house of a king

Electra was turned into a slave to her step-father

"The rise of a king, and the fall of a queen"

Could be when Agamemnon returned victorious from the war, meanwhile Clytemnestra was organizing the plan that would make her kids hate her

"Go get your upper class wife,

Oh, she's got all the personality,

Of a lemon that has been truly sucked dry"

That's not too far from how Clytemnestra ended up becoming

Ai generated image on the cover

This one is so bad it deserves it's own post

This shit has 781 pages, and you feel each one

"She refuses to become another woman rescued, possessed, crowned, and absorbed into a god’s mythology. Through love, conflict, separation, and accountability, Ariadne forces Dionysus to confront the difference between devotion and equality, apology and repair, power and wisdom."

There's no chance this "relationship" will be worth reading about

The sample goes up until Chapter 4

Of course we start with the annoying trend of "they don't remember (insert very known detail here)"

"Do not reduce her to a foolish mortal asked to see too much. That is how the gods prefer the story told. It protects them. A woman makes an impossible demand, a god reluctanly obeys, and tragedy follows as naturally as night follows sunset."

Whether you like it or not, there's not much about Semele

"She died because Zeus wanted without consequence."

If the consequence is death, then I don't blame him

"You find them before they understand what happened. Then you give them a new name, a new ritual, a new belonging. You call it rescue because the word possession would make you uncomfortable."

Why should anyone root for Ariadne and Dionysus as a couple?

"Her sisters knew how to lower their voices when men entered. They knew when to laugh, when to appear ignorant, when to praise decisions already made without them."

Oh, for fucks sake 🤦‍♀️

I HATE being able to use this meme again 😠

She was curious AND reckless

"Men had called her radiant, graceful, stubborn, marriageable, difficult, fortunate, ungrateful. Anger was something they detected only after it inconvenienced them."

This shit was written by ai. Because there's no other explaination for this vapid writing to be present in so many books

"Gods rarely listen unless listening serves desire. My mother did not yet know that."

Just shut up...

"In Thebes, a woman's pregnancy did not belong entirely to her. It belonged to her father's reputation, her family's alliances, the city's appetite for scandal."

And in you're saying that other greek cities are different?

"He could have allowed her to hate him. He could have admitted deception. He could have left. He could have broken her trust without breaking her body.

Instead, pride answered before wisdom."

Shut up. If Zeus had left her there, you would complain about how gods avoid telling the truth

Zeus trying to avoid killing Semele doesn't means he sees her as beneath. And her request is stupid!

"This detail is often omitted because Zeus does not appear noble while pleading. He offered gifts, protection, a palace, a future for the child. He offered everything except equality."

You can't ask equality from a bomb and no matter what this pathetic book says, she remains a fool

"He had helped remove me from my mother's burning body. Some say it was Zeus alone, but Zeus often receives credit for every act performed near his greatness.

Gods dislike questions that transform achievements into responsibilities."

This retelling is so bad that I'm defending Zeus

"I was present when he condemned a king for breaking an oath.

The irony tightened around me harder than muscle."

I'm not feeling sad that she died after demanding Zeus to summon an explosion in front of her 🙄

"You involve servants in the wars of gods and call yourself kind."

Since when the god known as "deliverer from plague(Loimos)" cares about collateral damage?

"You should know, that surviving a god's mistake does not make you chosen."

These characters have the exact same personality

"『Because children should not be punished for the architecture of their parent's marriage.』

It was the first kindness I recieved from a god who expected nothing in return."

Fuck you Hephaestus! You cursed Dionysus family while also trying to curse Eros! 😠🖕

Ps: look at the summary of this book again. The "writer" totally ignored the myths of Aura and Nicaea because that would show Dionysus as not better than Zeus, but Adrian Kessel decided to Zeus has to be the worst™️ no matter how forced the argument is

It's more confusing than what you think

Somehow they're forcing a conection between the priestess fanfic with achieving wealth in modern workplace 😐

Penelope and Odysseus in a Regency setting

This book only has the paperback available, so I don't know how the story goes

"And above all Penelope, who is no longer willing to exist merely as a shadow of the male legend."

I have a bad feeling about this

It's not exactly a Penelope retelling but don't care

The Sirens and the Silenced Women Helen • Clytemnestra • Eurycleia • The twelve maids

The implication that Helen is a silenced woman is ridiculous

"And now there is one being in all of creation who cannot doubt a single word I say, the one who is incapable of it, the one who made me, and he keeps climbing into my tower to sit on my floor like a dog, and I am so starved to be believed that I am not, after all, going to be able to make myself stop turning around."

Wait what?

"For readers of Lore Olympus, A Touch of Darkness, and morally-grey, villain-era Greek retellings,"

I can't avoid putting this part of the synopsis

Looks like this is Cassandra telling the events at 32 years old

"and that was my first mistake, because a girl who interests a god is a girl a god does not leave alone."

You're going with the annoying stereotype that dating a god means death? 🤦‍♂️

Also at 18 years old in ancient Greece it's ridiculous to call yourself a "girl"

"I will open you to prophecy, true prophecy, the real gift, the one I do not share, and you will see the future plainly and completely for the rest of your life,"

He shared this power to Branchus, Idmon, Anius

"I saw it. I saw the years of it. A god's kept girl, his on his whim, his to come for and his to leave, owning nothing, not even the inside of my own skin, grateful, forever, for a gift I had taken before I knew its cost."

That's not how... his relationships worked 🤦‍♂️

"Judge a being who has existed since before your sun was warm and has not once, in all of that, heard the word no aimed at him by anything that could feel."

... Apollo heard he word no more than once in myths 🤦‍♂️

"Cassandra, princess of Troy, is the only person who knows her city is doomed, but no one believes her."

I think Helenus also knew, to a certain extent

I have no idea where such pairing came from

"For five years the oracle Cassandra has been kept soft and silent behind the gilded lattice of the House of Quiet, where Troy stores the god-touched women it would rather not hear.

Under Olympian law she is Apollo's property, and Death's hands on what the sun has claimed is theft, tried before the council and paid for in lives, or in the office that keeps the dead from staying among the living."

Apollo didn't consider Cassandra his property

Being honest I didn't read the whole sample. I wasn't engaged

"They called it the House of Quiet because quiet was the thing it was for, a place to keep the god's difficult women soft and silent and out of weather, for their own protection, which was the phrase they used, and which Cassandra had come to understand was the most frightening sentence in the language."

That's NOT how she was treated 😠

Also what is this weird story that Apollo chose a group of women to be isolated from society?

Well that's somewhat different

"Cassandra keeps a private Memory Ledger, trading pieces of her life—scents, words, prayers—to buy minutes for others."

Unusual choice of plot

"Perfect for readers of Madeline Miller, Pat Barker, and Natalie Haynes,"

That explains why I was bored by chapter 3

"Hecuba, who is queen because she counts more than she hopes,"

What that's supposed to mean?

"『Speak, daughter,』 the priest says, and the way he says daughter means danger kept close enough to be useful."

"In this fierce first-person mythic retelling, Aphrodite speaks for herself"

There's nothing fierce about this character in this book

The sample goes up until Chapter 3

Chapter 9 will be disgusting

Chapter 10 will pretend that Venus beating pregnant Psyche never happened, or if it did, it was for a good cause

"They make me gentle because gentleness is easier to worship.

They say I rose from the sea. That part is true. But they leave out the blood.

They leave out the scream of the sky when the sickle struck. They leave out the old god's flesh falling into the waters."

NO ONE described you as purely gentle

MOST people only know Hesiod's version of your birth

"That is why they made me beautiful in every story and dangerous in none.

He looked confused, as if no god had ever asked him that.

Perhaps none had.

Mortals are always being told what gods want. Sacrifice. Obedience. Praise. Blood."

It doesn't get better...

"The first mortal prayer offered to me was not for pleasure. It was for return. Remember that. When you reduce me to lust, you insult even your own hunger.

I knelt before him. The gods made a sound behind me, offended that a new goddess should lower herself before a fisherman."

Every.single.book of this saga treats every Olympian as "I'm not like these other deities"

You absolutely can just love command the woman into loving her husband back. Don't pretend you have morals about that 😑

We're supposed to believe that the concept of desire was treated as forbidden on Olympus 😑

I hate how obnoxious this Aphrodite is. The "writer" really wants you to believe she's the only one who cares about mortals, when in reality she was one of the main sources of problem for them

"... the only problem was, she hadn't experienced any of the naughty bits first hand.

The pure and innocent goddess spent her days and nights trying to fix the problems of mere mortals,"

... that's insane 😐

A little different

You didn't consider that it's weird for Adonis, a character from greek myth, to write the phrase "pick up the phone"?

Being fair the hare was, for obvious reasons, one of the animals associated with Aphrodite

"There was Ares, the affair of mine the world speaks the most. Certainly interesting, but I doubt he ever loved anything but himself.

This is the story of the Goddess of Love and the Goddess of the Hunt."

... go fuck yourself

Seriously, why Artemis?

"Would melting it down hurt alliances with Dionysus? Best not to risk. But the thing was ugly as sin."

I hadn't met Poseidon before, but if THIS was the great god of the sea, color me unimpressed."

Poseidon and Aphrodite were worshipped together in many cities. Also offering a string of pearls as gift isn’t bad so why treat it with such a negative reaction? 😑

This will be bad, just like the other books from this group (?)

Another retelling where Artemis is obnoxious to the point you hate the character

The sample goes up until Chapter 2

"There is holiness in that. Not in gold (you have a golden bow). Not in temples (your temple was one of the wonders of the ancient world). Not in men carving laws into marble and pretending the stone agrees (🙄).

"Already, I was needed. That is another thing poets forget."

They don't...

"A goddess is made from what the world tries not to see."

You're pathetic

"They praised my brother. They forgot my mother's hands. They forgot the island's courage. They forgot the firstborn daughter who looked at blood and did not turn away."

The greeks did not forgot about Delos or that in SOME myths you helped in the birth of Apollo

"But love is not blindness. I saw him clearly. I saw what the world would forgive in him. I saw what it would demand from me. He would wound and be called necessary. I would punish and be called cruel."

You never cared about your brother being cruel and more than once joined him

As said in a previous post, you have more acts of wrath than acts of favor

"I would remember Delos when girls ran to me through the trees (sure...). I would remember my mother's blood when men spoke of honor over daughters' bodies (Homer, Iliad 6. 205 ff :"Artemis of the golden reigns (khrysenios) killed [Ladomeia] the daughter [of Bellerophontes] in anger."). I would remember Hera's absence when wives punished the women their husbands ruined(you also don't care about them)."

"He did not command the earth to open, or the sea to shelter her, or the skies to soften above her head."

In one account he told Aquilo and Neptune to help Latona reach Delos

Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 53 (trans. Grant) (Roman mythographer C2nd A.D.) :"Though Jove [Zeus] loved Asterie (Asteria), daughter of Titan, she scorned him. Therefore she was transformed in to the bird ortyks, which we call a quail, and he cast her into the sea. From her an island sprang up, which was named Ortygia. This was floating. Later Latona [Leto] was borne there at Jove's command by the wind Aquilo [Boreas], at the time when the Python was pursuing her, and there, clinging to an olive, she gave birth to Apollo and Diana [Artemis]. This island later was called Delos."

Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 140 :"Python, offspring of Terra [Gaia, Earth], was a huge draco (Dragon)who, before the time of Apollo, used to give oracular responses on Mount Parnassus. Death was fated to come to him from the offspring of Latona [Leto]. At that time Jove [Zeus] lay with Latona, daughter of Polus [Koios (Coeus)]. When Juno [Hera] found this out, she decreed that Latona should give birth at a place where the sun did not shine. When Python knew that Latona was pregnant by Jove, he followed her to kill her. But by order of Jove [Zeus] the wind Aquilo [Boreas] carried Latona away, and bore her to Neptunus [Poseidon].

"He looked at Apollo first. Of course he did. The golden son. The shinning proof. The new god already singing in his skin."

Zeus was more attached to Artemis 😑

"So I answered. Not with an infant's babble. Not with a child's reaching hand."

She was trying to reach his beard in the Hymn to Artemis

"『At a distance,』 I said, 『even kings can bleed.』"

Artemis would never say that

Here's how Zeus actually reacted:

Callimachus, Hymn 3 to Artemis 1 ff (trans. Mair) (Greek poet C3rd B.C.) : So spake the child and would have touched her father's beard, but many a hand did she reach forth in vain, that she might touch it [in supplication]. And her father smiled and bowed assent. And as he caressed her, he said : ‘When goddesses bear me children like this, little need I heed the wrath of jealous Hera.

He absolutely respected her opinion and she never acted against him

I'm noticing that some retellings try to paint the wishes as some kind of rebellion against Zeus, when it just wasn't. These writers really don't like that their "feminist" character got her freedom from the patriarch

Ai generated image on the cover

There's a viking ship on the background

I swear she looks like Starlight from The Boys

She had a GOLDEN BOW!!!

There's already a new cover. It's only marginally better

Some obscure cult of some unknown entity that wants to attack Olympus

"Westley Parker is exactly the kindof man Artemis would choose for herself if he were part of her world."

Of course 🙄

Artemis met this Westley by killing a monster that was attacking him

"Artemis whispered, turning towards the woman who had acted as more of a mother to her than the who'd birthed."

That's a terrible line

"She sat atop of her high horse, believing that her lifetimes of mostly-benevolent actions had protected her from their wrath, but she had been wrong."

To say Artemis was mostly benevolent is really naive

"He slept for two millennia! Who knows what he's like now?"

Hades was in a coma? 🤨

"One thing that Artemis had always admired about her sister was her inability to stay angry."

So Eileithyia is traveling with Artemis?

"Spirits of Tyche be with you. If Prometheus still lives, will you give him a kiss for me?"

What? Where this interest in Prometheus came from?

Nothing to say

Honestly it's crazy how many times I had to defend Zeus and/or Poseidon because retellings can't even criticise them for the right things