LORE By Alexandra Bracken

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. - Goodreads 

Easily, one of my favourite reads of 2021. After falling in love with Circe by Madeline Miller, I wished really strongly that more authors would take on Greek retellings and I feel like this year they did it.

(c) Trang Tran

This is urban fantasy, taking place in Manhattan, Lore, an ancient hunter is found to be on the steps of tracing back her lineage, the House of Perseids. You know the one thing I love in YA setting? The different houses or fractions. This one has multiple House of Gods battling each other but in a modern way. It also reminds me a lot of American Gods by Neil Gaiman, where the Old Gods fight against the New Gods.

(c) Trang Tran

Lore as a protagonist was magnificent to read from beginning to end. She has equal wits, intelligence, resilience and for someone who has lost all her family, she kept going through life. The main strength is also around the side characters. Castor, the love interest but foremost friend and Miles is just the most adorable flatmate who evidently as a mere mortal, shows his usefulness when the Gods ignore the reality of mortals. Adding to that you get to witness Athena at her glorious moments and funny bad-ass speeches and you encounter the new gods as they try to adapt to their new powers.

(c) Trang Tran

I’d have to warn that this book was not appreciated by a lot of people, in part because there were mentions of sexual assaults. But as Greek Mythology goes, I could understand the reference the author was making. In my opinion, since she hasn’t described any scenes explicitly and she only mentions them as a part of the mythology history, I find it still relevant to the plot . Another complain was that some of the information came in like dumps, and people were confused while I didn’t feel like that at all. I guess it always differs how you read a book.

Did you read it? What do you think about the book?

RATING: 5/5

Review by Trang Tran

Big thank you to Hachette – Disney- Hyperion for the copy of this book!