Booking Through 2022: March BOTM

 

    (Please Note: This post contains slight spoilers of Rachel Smythe's Lore Olympus.)

    Once again, I am behind schedule on blog posts. At this point anything I tell you will feel like an excuse, so just know that I am trying my best over here. I almost didn't do a March Book of the Month. I was discouraged after how February went, but part of life is getting back up when you fall and it's no different in the author and reader community. We all have our ups and downs. 

    January's author spotlight, Book of the Month, and giveaway went over amazingly in my reader groups, but February didn't bring in any entries. It was saddening. I'm not sure why my reader interaction has gone down. I've increased my media presence and have been doing giveaways as much as possible to bring in more readers to my page and the pages of our monthly author spotlights. 

    March's spotlight was Carrie Weston and I'm hoping you all gave it a read. She's a great author and an amazing person.

    As far as March's Book of the Month goes, I didn't know which book to pick. So, I kept pushing it off. I've finally settled on Lore Olympus. 

    At the end of March, I'd read 43/200 books of my reading goal for the year. I'm currently sitting at 47/200, which puts me 11 books behind schedule. I have faith I can pull this off, however. There are plenty of novellas and shorter works on my phone that I can read. I've just been in a novel mood this month. 

    Currently, I'm reading Dale Mayer's Corpse in the Carnations. It's a murder mystery with a female lead character. Honestly, it gives off a lot of Murder She Wrote and Murder She Baked vibes. Very Hallmark murder mystery-like. It's a good read though. I enjoy this series.

    March's Book of the Month was Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe. I settled on this one because after I read it I loaned it to someone else, who then asked if they could loan it to another person who wanted to read it, and then we had a good discussion about consent because of the book.

    The girl I lent it to is 10, which is a little younger than the age level I would recommend this book to, but she's an advanced reader and was going to steal the book from my bookshelf if I didn't loan it to her. There is a rape scene in the book that made me nervous and is ultimately why I listed the book as a young adult age level when I reviewed it.

    The girl told me, "The scene between Apollo and Persphone made me uncomfortable". 

    I said, "Good. Do you realize what was happening?"

    "He raped her and then he told her it was her fault. It wasn't her fault. She said stop and he didn't listen."

    My official review of Lore Olympus was posted on Goodreads (because Amazon's customer service is refusing to respond to me about the problems I've been having with reviewing on there.). I gave the book five hearts. 

    I had to take a few days to collect my thoughts after finishing this book. I'd read the episodes in it before on WebToon, but was excited to see it in print and had to reread it. I'm in the process of getting the second book. Apollo's crimes still hit hard in this second read-through, for me.

    Whether you're new to Greek mythology or a seasoned reader of it, this is a superb retelling of Hades and Persphone. The author and illustrator don't use the monochromic palette found in a lot of graphic novels. The book is full of color. Each individual character has their own color that represents them and their families. Such as Artemis and Apollo, who are purple like their father Zeus. Hades is blue, Hera is gold, Persphone is pink, and Posidon is green.

    The print version of this story had bonus content too. The bonus scene of Hera's birthday party made me happier than it probably should have. I thought it was adorable and I'm glad the author included it as bonus content, despite it not actually being a part of the official story.

    There are some trigger warnings in Lore Olympus. Rape is the main one. Then there is slight nudity (butts only) and a scene where Persephone is drugged at a party by Eros. I wouldn't give this book to anyone younger than a teen unless you know for sure the kid can handle it, which is why I refused the girl I loaned it to's request to loan it to her friend. Kids definitely need some guidance for this one. Honestly, the only reason I let her read it was because I know she's reading the Odyssey in her fourth-grade reading class and that book has worse things in it. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's a kid's adaptation of the book, but she was telling me all about Circe, the sirens, the cyclops, and Calypso, so I know they've covered at least the basics of the classic. You can't really read Greek mythology without being exposed to themes like rape. Because of Zeus, mainly. That guy can't keep it in his pants.

    Anyway, we're halfway through April now and I'll be writing up our April author spotlight soon. I'm hoping to get a few more posts done in between this one and that one. I've been keeping a list of topics I want to write about on my phone and I'm finally getting around to checking some of them off.