A review by miloulou
The Deep End of the Sea by Heather Lyons

4.0

Loved all of it, right up until... the last third. So five stars 2/3, and three stars for the last third makes my rating a 4 to round it off. I feel like the backstory how Hades, Persephone and Medusa were connected was so unnecessary. The story would have been just as strong without it, instead of giving the novel a nice rainbow to put over their already happy relationships. As well, it just makes things weird for me, given Medusa and Hermes' relationship even though it's explained away through different genetics.

As well, I just found the last third when Medusa was on her own to be so boring. Nothing major happened. There are glimpses of her transformation, but we don't really know her thoughts. There are these jumps in time, two weeks later, three months later, etc... And we didn't see any of the real action. Just got to find out in the end, what everyone found it. It was like reading the summary of the story, instead of actually reading a novel.

Another complaint I have is the characterization of Persephone and Aphrodite. They just seemed like such flat characters, with no personality at all. Or whatever they had was interchangeable. Reading back through their scenes, they could have easily been one character, all happy with a love for shopping. I enjoyed seeing them, but it's difficult to even identify what makes them unique from each other.

What I love though, was how Medusa really changed throughout the novel. Her strength builds up slowly, overtime as she comes to know herself and believe in herself. She wants to be independent, to finally live her own life but after 2000 years of isolation, it's hard. It was wonderful to see her overcome all the inner obstacles, the self hatred and the pain she felt over what happened to her.

I also loved Hermes. It was a little bit strange for me to continuously read about how Medusa idolized him, calling him her knight, but given her life it makes sense. What makes him seem so much better to me, is how we do see how differently he treats her from other people. Brings him alive for me, because he's actually not that nice to everyone. But for the girl he loves, well Medusa is a lucky girl to have him.

I also loved the blend of these really old deities and the modern world. Sometimes really old characters are written really modern, making it harder for me to really imagine them as characters who've been around for centuries. Yet here, the way they interacted somehow worked. Not sure exactly what it was, maybe because they had a formal way of speaking, it worked. The one piece that didn't work in the novel was the way the gods were described as having emotions that never changed. As in, one they decided on something, they stayed that way. Considering all the different affairs they were supposed to have, how much time they have, and how fickle their supposed to be, this doesn't really work for me. Other than that though, they were great.