#euryale

Before we begin let’s set some ground rules:

1. No harassing the author or her fans, this a safe space for harsh criticism but I won’t tolerate sexism or racism here.

2. The author bragged several times about how she did her research on ancient Greek mythology and history, that struck a nerve with me bc from the little tidbits I’ve seen I highly doubt it so I’m reading this book to be more certain.

3. No Ovid hate allowed here either, just bc his work has been badly adapted and misinterpreted constantly doesn’t mean that it’s his fault.

4. Tbh making Medusa North African isn’t bad in itself but the way this book and countless retellings and online ppl do it… leaves much to be desired.

5. This book isn’t unique, countless Medusa retellings came out over the years, several came out this year and they have the exact same premise as this book and yet ppl have amnesia and act like this book is so fresh and new and unique… which also struck a nerve lol

6. Make your own opinions. Read this book yourself and come to your own conclusions, don’t just copy my opinions pls I don’t wanna suffer through this book alone lol

7. If you are wondering, why do I read this book? Well I’m a hater but I’m a professional one so I want to let this book speak for itself before making any sweeping judgements and also:

8. I AM NOT AN EXPERT! I just read a lot and I’m somewhat well informed on mythology and Ancient Greek priestesses, but I don’t know everything so I could make mistakes and if I do PLEASE kindly tell me so I could correct myself!

Ok let’s begin!

The book starts off strong with these quotes, let’s see how well they’re represented in the book.

“Gods always behave like the people who make them.”

—Zora Neale Hurston

“Sometimes it seems that anger alone keeps me alive.”

—Audre Lorde

Prologue

So the prologue starts with Medusa (in disguise) going to a crumbling temple that has one lone elderly priest looking after it, she goes inside the temple and approaches him and they have this odd exchange:

Now this is odd bc I don’t remember anything I’ve read about Ancient Greek religion were someone approaches a priest for a blessing (tho I could be wrong) but moving on, she says she has nothing in exchange for the blessing so he says that he could give her a blessing if she slept with him… ok?

First off, Ancient Greek priests and priestesses were of high status, there was no such thing as separation between church and state and so they had massive political, social and financial power; like all powerful classes they can be corrupt and exploit the lower classes in one way or another (just look at our current political environment) so I don’t think it’s crazy to have a corrupt priest who uses his power to exploit poor women… with that said I think it’s absolutely absurd that he does it inside the temple. There are tons of stories were intercourse (regardless of wether it was rape or consensual) being punished by the gods bc it was sacrilegious so the fact that this perv wasn’t obliterated for this or caused a plague bc of his actions is ridiculous, just look up the story of Comaetho.

Anyway Medusa just… lets this creep paw and grope her for some reason??? Was it to feel a rush or something? But then she kills him when she’s lying on top of him, that whole sequence is bizarre and idk what this prologue is even for. Idk maybe we’ll be told wtf was going on here later.

Side note tho, I was promised rage but Medusa seemed oddly nonchalant killing the guy.

Chapter one

Now this is in the past, before Medusa was cursed and she still lived with her family on an island, so she’s practicing a dance number for the feast bc the Sea Court is coming over and Ceto berates her for every mistake. Here we learn a bit about Medusa and her family dynamics, first that she wishes to leave her island and explore the world, which is all well and good she’d probably be able to do just that if these authors remember that Gorgons have wings lol so anyway Ceto is an abusive wine mom, that’s all there is to her. I understand that Ceto has no characterization in the source material but like… c’mon lol that’s the best you can come up with? A pathetic alcoholic? Did wine even exist back then? Was Dionysus even born yet?

Then we get to Stheno and Euryale…

Remember these artwork? How we poked fun at it for the same face/body syndrome? Well I was hoping that maybe that’s the artist’s fault and the book actually describes them looking different… it did not.

You cannot look me dead in the eye and tell me that you can tell which one in the art is Stheno and which one is Euryale. The writing isn’t telling me anything substantial, all I’m picturing is two slender women and one has a slightly rounder face. That’s it. Lots of romantasy books have this exact problem where all the characters are all generically beautiful with little to no variation.

And I do not believe for a fucking second that Medusa stands out like a sore thumb when she’s with them, they’re literally clones of each other, say what you will about Madeline Miller’s Circe but when Circe said she wasn’t as beautiful as her family the writing actually backed it up.

Anyways, the reason for this whole feast and dance number is to find suitors for Medusa and her sisters, makes sense ig. Ceto demands more wine from the slaves but it all ran out and Euryale tries to to tell her to tone it down with the wine to which Ceto responds by throwing her goblet at her, Ceto quickly apologizes but Euryale understandably finds it hollow. Ceto leaves the girls and Stheno and Medusa comfort their sister who says she hates their mother and can’t wait to get married and leave the island.

Later, Medusa hangs out with Theo (bruh what is this name it literally means god at least call him Theon which means godlike) and he’s into woodcarving and like Meddy he likes looking at maps and scrolls and they have a nice little moment… but it would be so fucking funny if Medusa ends up having more chemistry with him than with Apollonia lol

Chapter 2

This is right before the feast and… the way Phorcys is described annoys me

He literally looks like a normal guy, I can excuse making Ceto look normal bc the only art depicting her looks like a normal woman, but I draw the line at making Phorcys look like some guy especially since he’s so eager to remind ppl of his power and domain, bc if he wants to remind ppl that he’s the god of the dangers of the deep he’d look like the dangers of the deep! And what’s with characterizing him as a has-been? I looked everywhere for such characterization I looked at Theoi, Wikipedia and topostext and found nothing that even implies this. In fact Phorcys is mentioned in the same breath as other powerful sea gods and even titans, he’s even mixed up with Proteus and Nereus and labeled the ‘old man of the sea’, even the Pharsalia says that Phorcys comes second to Poseidon/Neptune. This honestly feels like a forced conflict ngl

For a moment Phorcys and Ceto are worried no one would come and it’s so corny bc it reminds me of a child who’s sad that no one they invited came to their birthday party lol, but of course the sea court arrives and the sisters do their dance number they’ve practiced, they are interrupted by Poseidon coming over and everyone stops what they’re doing bc they’re shocked SHOCKED that Poseidon came over to the feast.

First off I noticed that a lot of characters wear white, Medusa wore white in the prologue and it’s whatever bc ig the white could symbolize innocence, then Euryale wears white which is ok but then Eurybia wears white which I found bizarre but now even Poseidon wears white??? Huh??? Even Phorcys wears purple so why is Poseidon wearing plain white???

And now with the bit of world building, how there’s this divide between Olympians and older gods/titans with the Olympians viewing them as inferior… that’s also bs lol the only divide between the two groups is generational, they weren’t separate species and even then there’s no animosity between them based on that alone, the titans who supported the Olympians were honored and the ones who were neutral in the Titanomachy weren’t hated or viewed as inferior at all, it’s only the titans who fought against the Olympians who got punished. So wtf do you mean that the Olympians don’t ’fraternize’ with older gods? Helios, Hecate, Mnemosyne, Themis and so many others would disagree lol

Besides, it makes no sense that Phorcys and Ceto are shocked that Poseidon attended their feast, since Poseidon (and even the other Olympians) feasted with Ethiopians in the Iliad and Odyssey, so if they would feast with mortals no problem why would they take issue with older gods? That just doesn’t make sense to me. Phorcys and Ceto weren’t involved in the Titanomachy so why would they worry the Olympians don’t like them? What is the divide between new and old gods even based on in this interpretation?

The gorgons sisters are introduced to Poseidon by Phorcys, Medusa seems to be growing a crush on Poseidon and he seems to be interested in her in return, yeah we knew there was gonna be a grooming storyline here. Phorcys laments that he has no sons but that he’s eager to marry off his daughters, I’ve said in an older post that it makes no sense for Phorcys to be so obsessed with getting his daughters married since in mythology, only Echidna is married and his other daughters like the Graiai, Gorgons, Sirens and sometimes even the Hesperides all live on their own, so this just feels more like Phorcys is forced into the stereotype of a sexist father even tho he isn’t like that in the myths.

After that Medusa goes to sit with her mother, at least here Ceto isn’t cartoonishly evil which I liked.

They then meet Amphitrite:

At first I was worried that this book is gonna make Amphitrite the jealous wife but it doesn’t, instead it seems to go with the version that Amphitrite was forced to marry Poseidon and y’know what? I’m fine with that bc that’s a legit version of the myth and I see no issue adding it into a retelling. Notably Amphitrite has the same hair as Medusa and she even looks at her hair… we soon find out why…

Medusa feels uncomfortable after that interaction and goes outside for some air, she’s comforted by Theo and they walk together. They come across Poseidon fucking a nymph that looks like Medusa. Ok not subtle at all.

Now this is creepy and that’s intentional but what really grinds my gears is that Medusa doesn’t know what sex is and… how??? Her parents are so hellbent on getting her married and they don’t even give her a vague talk about the birds and the bees??? It would make sense if she’s 12 but Medusa is supposed to be 17 here. It would make more sense for her to be confused over what’s going on but then realizing “oh so this is what sex looks like I wasn’t well informed on what it’s like but now I know”, I’m not even the only one who found this scene jarring tons of reviews found it weird even the ppl who liked this book.

Anyways that’s how the chapter ends.

"Out of place next to her beautiful, immortal sisters and her parents—both gods, albeit minor ones"

WHERE???!

There's NO difference between them!

it’s Medusa’s life before her death and its slice of life.

that’s it.

no big conflict pre-Perseus, no UwUifing & / or victimising Snake Lady, or demonising her family.

Just little dumb moments like Medusa, Euryalê & Sthennô cracking up at each other’s crude / evil jokes / being three terrifying Disney Villain-type sisters, spending some quality time with their parents who r very proud of their horrible monstrous girls, Medusa & her Monsterfucker bf Poseidon (not Ovid’s version) being freak4freak with each other, rolling around in that meadow and ruining the soil with their graphic canoodling/j, you get the idea.

Medusa then finding out she’s pregnant and her sisters teasing her about it profusely (“*loud hiss-cackling* weren’t too careful with that Sea God lover of yours were you?~” “*growl-groan* OH SHUT IT”).

and then her death…BUT-

it’s portrayed comedicish with her sisters walking in on her corpse at the sound of her head being sliced like: “sister don’t tell us you’ve started wetting the bed alre-

*babe Pegasus + Khrysaor on the floor next to Medusa’s body like

👁️👁️ 👁️👁️*

*Perseus with his back turned looking pants shittingly TERRIFIED*

“…wh- WHAT IN THE FUCKING—“

btw NO PERSEUS SLANDER WILL BE TOLERATED‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️