Sunday, February 28, 2010

Radiant Darkness by Emily Whitman

We’ve all heard the Greek myth of Persephone. You know, she’s the reason why the season’s change, but what you probably don’t know is that she has a much more interesting story and she is here to share it.

Persephone feels like her mother Demeter, is strangling her. She keeps her locked up in the garden with no one her own age and is honestly getting quite frustrated with it. One day when her mother is out being the center of attention at some festival or another, a strange man appears in garden. In Persephone’s eyes he is the most handsome and mysterious man (as well as the only) man she has ever met and he fascinates her even though she doesn’t even know his name.

When he offers her the dream of a lifetime, to leave the garden and come live with him she jumps at the chance, not really caring what her mother thinks. What she finds out later though is he is Hades and lives in the underworld, but now she really can’t do anything about it. In her mind though it doesn’t matter. She’s with a man she loves and is getting to do what she wants for the first time ever. What she doesn’t realize though is that while she is having a good time in the underworld, back up Earth havock is being wrecked. Will Persephone decide to stay in the underworld or will she return to a world of restraints up on Earth?

Gosh, I was really looking forward to this book and it was good yes, but it wasn’t as great as I thought it would be. I enjoyed the fun new twist on an old myth and definitely liked Persephone’s independent personality.

The characters were very basic and flat and I just really couldn’t connect with them. I did however enjoy how Hades was made to be a “cool” guy and how Persephone viewed him with a positive attitude. I also enjoyed how Persephone felt like a real teen – looking for independence and doing what she felt was right without giving regard to others!

I found the plot to be quite repetitive and slow moving, but as I mentioned before enjoyed the new look that Persephone had. I did however enjoy the ending and it really saved the book in my eyes. The writing wasn’t dazzling, but it did keep me reading so I can’t say that it was that bad.

Overall I liked this book and thought it was a decent debut for the author. If you’re a big fan of Greek mythology than I think you should definitely give this book a try as it really is quite entertaining to read about this new twist in her story.

4 comments:

Diana Dang said...

Although I realized it wasn't the best book out there, for some reason I enjoyed it a lot. But at least it's not that of a bad read for you.

So Many Books, So Little Time said...

I really love reading about Greek mythology so I might give this a ago. Thanks for the great review!

BookChic said...

I've been wanting to read this for a while, but maybe I'll hold off on it for a bit. Thanks for the review!

I'm a Lit-Bitch, Baby said...

I was actually looking at this book the other day and have been debating picking it up because I've enjoyed 'updated' mythologies and fairy tales. I think I may wait a bit longer on this one.

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