I found this retelling very interesting because it seems to deviate quite a bit from the original myths in order to make a different point. Because of that, I can definitely see some people not really enjoying this book because of it, but I personally ended up really liking the spin it gave on the original myths, and the new framing the story had because of it.

While I was semi-familiar with the myths this retelling was based on, I wasn’t recently familiar with them, and I think that helped! I was more open to the liberties that Heywood took with the source material because I couldn’t clearly see what exactly was new and what wasn’t, beyond some of the obvious changes. Myths in general are also fluid, and I feel like keeping the spirit of them is often more important than keeping the exact events, and I felt like that was still kept here. It was also fascinating to sort of focus on one character (Perseus), but only ever see him through the lens of other characters. It gives such an interesting idea of a character, and I’d love to see more stories written like this, retelling or not!

I also quite enjoyed the writing style of this book, and it worked well with the audiobook narrator I listened to. It just read very smoothly to me, and it made it really easy to just keep moving throughout the book. Often, these sorts of retellings can feel very dense and bogged down by fancy prose, but this book had such an easy storytelling style that it made it easy to keep on listening. I never felt like I had to take a break or pause for a bit, as my brain had enough space to process the book while reading it, rather than it being too dense for that.

While I definitely don’t think this retelling will be for everyone, I do think fans of looser retellings will end up enjoying it!