Thank you to LibroFM and Princeton University Press for this ALC in exchange for an honest review.

In complete honesty, this made me want to throw my phone in the lake or into a path of a speeding car. 

What in the repetitive spew was this? I guess if there's one thing gun shop owners have going for them is that they all have the same exact talking points, which the author used repeatedly. This needed some major editing. If each person you interview says the same thing, you don't need to give basically the same quote from them all on the subject. 

We get it: people on both sides of the aisle sought out guns at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (not a justified reason to buy a gun if i'm being honest). That minorities felt that people on the right were going to hurt them due to racism and bigotry (a justified reason for them to want to protect themselves).

There were zero crucial lessons given in this. 

What this author did instead of showing both sides of the aisle in the first 37% of this, is let right wing, gun shop owners spew racist words and Fox News talking points. She let them have a voice on why gun control laws need to be more lax. In a world where we've had 210 mass shootings in the United States in 2023 so far at the time of this review (May 11, 2023)?

This is not cohesive at all. Author couldn’t decide if the MC had a sister or not and I’m sorry if your man proposes to you on his lunch break with a cupcake, he’s 🗑️

I rarely DNF this close to the ending, but I’m sorry I just can’t go on. 

Nothing is holding my attention and when I can finally get focus back Richard goes into a tirade about film. Don’t worry, I won’t forget the pointless like two chapters with his soon to be very jealous ex wife 

The grammar and lack of editing in here made my head hurt like I was in a room full of nails on a chalkboard 😖

Honestly didn’t care enough to continue past chapter one. It didn’t grab me at all

If I had to hear about the inspectors body shape one more time 🤬

Can’t stand the narrator at all

I think I just need to stick to Greek Mythology retellings because this gave nothing new. I don't know what I really expected, but I'm disappointed none the less. 

I also lost my physical copy somehow so I switched to the audiobook, which I do not recommend. 

I think the book gods hid my book as sign to put the book down. 

The multiple POVs and time jumps make this choppy. Additionally a lot of this has been, “the character did this and then this so she could do this”.  The adult women POVs read like that of a teenager instead of a grown woman. Finally, the mother keeping secrets from the daughter was petty and childish. 

All of these complaints made it hard for me to connect to any of the character. 


Might come back to, but probably won’t. Tried both physical copy and audio. 

Listen, this book isn’t bad but I can tell if I try to make myself keep going I will be stuck back into a reading slump and I'm not about to let this book do that. 

I can see what Madeline Miller was trying to do - expand on the love story of Achilles and Patroclus through Patroclus explaining their story to Thetis to get into the underworld. However, this is so slow and the writing style changes randomly. I only got to page 139 and still think a lot could've been cut out to make this move faster. 

In the end, aren't retellings supposed to have more oomf than the original? 

Also, yes Achilles is the son of a goddess, but does that warrant Patroclus constantly idolizing his knees and feet? Like that's what you love about the guy you've fallen in love with?

And yes I tried it both on audio and the physical copy. The audiobook narrator sounds like a more boring version of Prince Harry