Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Erebus by Alessa Thorn

1 review

shannasbookshelf's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

"She hadn't considered for a moment that Erebus had watched the videos out of kindness. Or that he attacked Kayne and the facility because of what they had done to her. The previous evening, he had said he had understood her anger, and Medea realized he really was the only one who did."
Boy, oh boy, was this a great sucker-punch of an ending to The Court of the Underworld. But at the same time, this left me with one of my most severe book hangovers to date. As I'm writing this review, it's been about 3 days since I finished it. And even writing this review leaves me with a heart-clutching, although satisfied, feeling at how both Erebus' and Medea's story, and the series as a whole, played out. My recent binging of Criminal Minds seasons 13-15 for the first time (currently in S.14) may also be factoring into the heart-clutching feeling. Erebus was a whirlwind of a story and of emotions, and I was here for every second of it. Although I do need some more time to recover. Erebus and Medea had such a fun build-up in their relationship. I also loved how, once they were together, it wasn't all sunshine and roses for them and that they still had their initial tension and banter. The rest of this review is under the spoiler feature because I don't know how else to discuss these parts and break them up. But I do recommend this book as long as you read books 1-6 first.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Murder, Self harm, Sexual content, Gore, Grief, and Violence

Moderate: Xenophobia, War, and Torture

Demeter's murder was the first in a series of gutting moments for me. A little while after a couple of her buildings were bombed, Darius beheaded Demeter with Ares' sword. While Demeter was a bit of a bitch in Hades, she didn't deserve to die like that on TV (or at all, if we're honest). But what really got me in this scene was Persephone's reaction to it: she may not have had a great relationship with her mother, but Demeter was still her mother. Additionally, all the shit Medea went through because of Darius - I'm glad she was able to get to him in the end. But damn, Ariadne's death and Asterion's reaction to it hit me hard. While I love everyone in the Court, Ariadne and Asterion were my favorites. It made me happy when Hades and Thanatos brought Ariadne back to life, and that Hades gave her the golden apple of immortality. Lastly, we learn about Erebus' issue with his feet. In books 1-6, he's teased about his thing with feet. But I just wanted to hug him when he confessed to Medea that he hated the evidence of Zeus' bonds on them, which resulted in a lot of self-harm.