Review: Lore

Celestial Blackrose

Nov 25

Ｔｉｔｌｅ： Lore

Ａｕｔｈｏｒ： Alexandra Bracken

Ｓｅｒｉｅｓ： Standalone

Ｒａｔｉｎｇ： ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

From the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Darkest Minds comes a sweepingly ambitious, high-octane tale of power, destiny, love and redemption.

Every seven years, the Agon begins. As punishment for a past rebellion, nine Greek gods are forced to walk the earth as mortals, hunted by the descendants of ancient bloodlines, all eager to kill a god and seize their divine power and immortality.
Long ago, Lore Perseous fled that brutal world in the wake of her family's sadistic murder by a rival line, turning her back on the hunt's promises of eternal glory. For years she's pushed away any thought of revenge against the man--now a god--responsible for their deaths.

Yet as the next hunt dawns over New York City, two participants seek out her help: Castor, a childhood friend of Lore believed long dead, and a gravely wounded Athena, among the last of the original gods.

The goddess offers an alliance against their mutual enemy and, at last, a way for Lore to leave the Agon behind forever. But Lore's decision to bind her fate to Athena's and rejoin the hunt will come at a deadly cost--and still may not be enough to stop the rise of a new god with the power to bring humanity to its knees.

"Power does not transform you, he'd said. It only reveals you."

I originally review a sample of this book for Netgalley and had some mixed feelings about it. Despite liking the general premise of the book I felt like the initial chapters threw a lot of information at us. Even then, I felt slightly confused about some points and it wasn't until the main character laid things out for her friend that things finally became clear. At the end of the sample, I decided the initial confusion hadn't turned me off to the book and I was willing to continue. After finishing Lore, I have to say that I'm glad I gave it another chance!

Being a fan of Greek mythology, this book seemed like a fun read. I loved how much detail was put into the worldbuilding and all the little references to Greek mythology. There was life to the story in that sense. It kind of reminded me of the detail put into the Mortal Instruments which is a definite compliment.

Lore was a likable protagonist. At the beginning of the book, we know that Lore has lost her entire family so that instantly made me sympathetic. It was clear the event still haunted her even though she was determined not to be dragged back into the world she'd managed to crawl out of. It became clear as the story went on that Lore was divided between two worlds. She ached for the normalcy of a human life without the shadow of the Agon over her, but she also craved the honor and glory of proving herself worthy in the eyes of all the people that looked down at her.

As for the other characters in this book, I liked them but I felt like we didn't get to spend enough time with them. They were honestly a little flat. I felt like we knew Cas the best out of the crew, but the rest were just props basically.

I think Lore ran into the problem that many standalones run into: packing too much in too short a time. Honestly, I think many of the issues with Lore could have been solved by simply extending the story into a duology. The plot was very fast; something was always happening but it wasn't necessarily a good thing. This made the romance seem sudden, the ending rushed, and the character development a little messy.

The ending especially took a big hit because of the rushing and left me with a lot of questions. We had no idea about what happened to the original Gods. The conclusion Lore had reached about the poem made it unclear. What happened to the Gods who hadn't learned their intended lesson? And if Lore's theory was true, Apollo's fate didn't make much sense considering it had still been a selfish decision in the end. It was also unclear what would happen to her society. They had lived under the rules of the Agon for so long. What would become of the hunters? Especially with all the radical changes. Not to mention we didn't get to see what really became of lore. It seemed like she had come to a decision about her future, but I wanted to know a little more. I definitely feel like an epilogue was necessary for this one. even a brief one to know what happened to the Gods.

Overall, Lore was a quick, entertaining read with some bumps here and there, but still enjoyable. the story was definitely there, it just needed a better execution.