I found this book at the library in their new arrivals section and was intrigued by the synopsis. I grew up reading Percy Jackson and ended up obsessed with Greek mythology. That never really went away. So here’s Lifestyles of Gods and Monsters, a modern Greek mythology story with reality TV and a Hunger Games vibe. I hadn’t heard anything about it and decided to give it a go, expecting to love it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t. I’d even go as far as saying it’s one of the worst books I’ve read in 2020, something I believe I’ve said about only two other books out of nearly 110.

If I’m being honest, this book read like it needed another couple of rounds of editing. While I didn’t notice any typos and the writing itself was fine, I found issues with just about every other aspect. The two most significant, in my opinion, were the world-building and the way Ariadne’s parents treated her and her sisters.

The world-building was messy. It’s a mix of ancient Greece and modern times, but beyond that, I couldn’t explain a single thing to you. It’s so jumbled and unclear, like the author couldn’t decide what, exactly, she wanted to do, and just did it all.

As for Ariadne’s family, all I can say is yikes. Not only are her parents cold-hearted, shallow, awful people, but they prioritize their show, its ratings, and their public image over their daughters and basically everything else. They even use said daughters to increase the show’s ratings. Ariadne’s sisters—I think they’re older, but I don’t remember their age—are always at parties, drinking and flirting and dancing, and they end up sleeping with people they don’t like to satisfy their parents and help the show. Ariadne is eventually given similar orders. It’s disgusting. I can’t properly explain how much this disgusted me as I continued reading.

To be quite honest, I didn’t like any of the relationships. Ariadne’s “best friend” Icarus almost always sides with her parents rather than her, doesn’t support her when she needs it most, and is generally the crappiest excuse for a friend I’ve seen in some time, maybe ever. Sure, he does something nice in the end, but in my eyes it’s far from enough to make up for all the times he was a self-absorbed, insensitive jerk.

As for the love interest Theseus, I don’t even remember what he looks like. I just know he’s your typical strong, pretty boy, and he and Ariadne were attracted to each other right away. Gotta love insta-love. Even though their relationship progressed as the story did, with it becoming more and more important later on, I wasn’t convinced. The two of them had no chemistry whatsoever.

I almost forgot to mention Ariadne herself, our protagonist who makes sure to state multiple times that she doesn’t care about fashion the way her sisters do, and she doesn’t wear makeup, and she’s not like other girls. Save me. Not only that, but before she meets Theseus she’s unnecessarily mean to most people, and after almost all she thinks about is him. Oh, and she likes video games. I’m pretty sure that’s her only personality trait.

Most of the story was pretty predictable up until the very end, at which point so much happened, I almost couldn’t keep up. There wasn’t technically anything wrong with the ending—it was kind of nice, actually—except the last couple of chapters felt disjointed.

I know I mentioned earlier in the review that the writing was fine and left it at that, but I did find one thing in my notes regarding the writing that I want to mention. One of the most cringeworthy phrases I’ve ever read came from this book, when Ariadne said that she and Theseus are “having some pretty serious eye sex”. WHAT IS THAT?? WHY WAS THIS INCLUDED??? I AM DISTURBED.

Ahem. I think I’ve said as much as I can about Lifestyles of Gods and Monsters. If you want to read this, go for it, but I can’t bring myself to recommend it. Not when I found so many issues throughout the book, and was so glad to finally be done with it.

Representation