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laurareadsbig's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault and Rape
fdallachy's review
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
3.0
This is a nice idea - taking medieval myths and legends about the history of Britain and creating from them a new narrative. It replicates the medieval practice of taking multiple versions of stories, picking a main version to follow, but embroidering it with expansions from others and from the author's own imagination. My reservations about it, however, are that it doesn't flow terribly well; despite best efforts, the stories don't really have enough depth to combine into a coherent narrative, and the author's explanatory epilogues to each - which deliver some really interesting commentary - bring the momentum of the mythology to a crashing halt each time. It is, however, a really interesting experimental style of folklore writing, and very much worth reading.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Rape
zoezie's review
dark
informative
medium-paced
3.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: War, Violence, and Rape
darkefyres's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
2.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Death of parent, Grief, Murder, Child death, Infidelity, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Blood, Confinement, Suicide, Slavery, and Colonisation
Minor: Animal death
michaelsbirthday's review
adventurous
informative
relaxing
fast-paced
3.5
I wanted to like this book more than I did. And I did still like it! The stories were interesting and I really appreciated the contextual evaluation of each of the stories by the author - but I would have liked more of both elements of the book. The stories sometimes felt disjointed, which I appreciate in many ways reflects the way that they were written/created/compiled over the centuries of the middle ages, but I found it hard to grasp a timeline or how the stories related to/followed on from each other. Perhaps I would have liked something that went more in depth to each story, rather than simply the parts/snippets of stories we get in this book. Likewise with the author’s explanations, I was always clamouring for more information/analysis by the end of each very short chapter. Still, I did like the book and learned a lot about British mythology and its origins.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape
mc235's review
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
4.0
Really enjoyed this! Gorgeous illustrations and prose. Some stories were familiar and some completely new. Fascinating to learn about how British mythology draws on other mythologies, and the little explanation of what sources the author was drawing on and her sort of travel diary-esque afterwords to each story were super interesting.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape and Sexual assault
afion's review
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
Moderate: Suicide
Minor: Miscarriage
Just thought I’d list the chapters containing triggers in case anyone wants to skip them: Rape: chapters 6, 7 and 20 Suicide: chapters 9 and 13 Miscarriage: chapter 12
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