I was really torn on rating this 4 or 5 stars because some of the stories were SO good and some of my complaints are more formatting issues but had to go with 4 since I didn’t love everything about this.

Let’s be clear Babalola is a fabulous writer, she has a very lyrical and beautiful way of writing, I think my main adjective to describe it would be “rich.” Very rich in detail and color and texture, I could FEEL the locations. It actually reminded me a lot of Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers which is in my top 10 romances, so maybe that’s why I enjoyed it so much.

WHAT I LIKED:
If you like audiobooks, I cannot recommend this one enough. There’s a whole cast of actors and they all have stunning British accents, Babalola’s is a Nigerian British accent and I could listen to her speak ALL day, wow. The pacing of the narrators was also excellent, just overall a good production.

I quite enjoyed the ones set in modern day, my favorite was Psyche, who was a social media manager, and Olympus represented “big media.” I liked the reimagining of the wall between Pyramus and Thisbe, in a college dorm setting that was really cute.

I liked that Babalola included some original writing, including her parents’ story which was sweet to listen to her mother narrate that. I will say I am unsure of the lessons/morals we were supposed to come away with from her own work, but good stories at least.

WHAT I DISLIKED:
I agree with several people’s reviews that say to make it past the first story. It meanders and takes quite a while to get to the meat of the plot, it feels like the first half is about the protagonist swimming and her grace and power which was well written and interesting but then it turns out it had nothing to do with the rest of that myth’s plot so you’re left confused.

I really enjoyed the diversity of myths selected, I hadn’t heard of most of the original myths. Which actually made it harder for me to follow along, because these are reimagined myths, so not knowing the foundation I wasn’t sure how things were altered/adapted. Babalola does do a brief recap of some in her conclusion which was very interesting but I could’ve used that at the beginning or end of each myth. I also would’ve liked more detail about the originals - where were they from, specifically? What parts were adapted, and what modern take on the morals was she aiming for?

Thus we come to one of my biggest issues with the book, which could be because I’ve never read a collection of short stories by one author that takes place across genres. (Is this a common book type? I’m actually not sure!) Because some myths featured magic/goddesses/divine power in all different time periods, it was very difficult in the beginning of each story to understand the context and the world boundaries. It was a bit jarring to flip through very different worlds, each with their own set of parameters, somewhat at random. Was the protagonist described as a “goddess” because she was beautiful or because she was literally a deity? It was honestly difficult to tell sometimes.

OVERALL
Quite good, I will definitely keep an eye out for her next book. I like essays and short story collections because they’re easy to pick up and put down. I think the editor could’ve tightened the pacing of some things and included notes about each individual myth, but other than that this was a solid debut!