A review by galleytrot
Last Courtesan of Olympus by Amanda Meuwissen

  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

READ: May 2024 
FORMAT: Digital 

ENTERTAINMENT VALUE: 3 / 5⭐ 
TECHNICAL / PRODUCTION: 3.5 / 5⭐
FINAL – OVERALL: 3.25 / 5 ⭐ 

In this book, Aikos is meant to ascend from acolyte to courtesan with full expectations of being the very best for whichever god chooses him. What he doesn't expect is for Zeus himself to spirit him away to Mount Olympus with a challenge for Aphrodite's best: Aikos is to be had by each of the male gods of the major pantheon, and only once he's fulfilled his duty to each of them will he be free to make the choice of which one he will dedicate his service to. If Aikos knows one thing about the gods, it's that they can be jealous and spiteful things - he knows he's walking a razor's edge. 

So the biggest thing I have to address about my enjoyment of this book is: I never at any point felt any amount of attachment to or endearment toward the story's protagonist. In fact, I spent most of the book waiting for Aikos to get appropriately humbled or to display any amount of humility, but I guess this was never meant to be that sort of book. Instead, this is a book about a kid who is far too full of himself being proven right over and over again, then getting rewarded for it. Aikos' entire personality, backstory, character growth, ethos, world view, everything, all boils down to: "good at sex and don't you dare forget it." This book is just, "GodX is sad, but it's okay, because Aikos can cure him by using his perfect body," times eight. 

If you're looking for a romance with character growth and well-thought-out characters, this isn't the one for you. If you're looking for mindless kinky erotica that occasionally gets a little weird and pushes your imagination, this... well, it is that, but it also doesn't hold up in my opinion. I'm no stranger to bringing on the kink or the strange and fantastical elements that challenge what I thought I knew I liked, but I found myself bored by more of these encounters than drawn in. I feel like this book might do better as an introduction to the spicier side of spicy, never truly pushing the boundaries the way I've grown used to books like these doing. 

If you want something similar, something fantastical and kinky and magical and spicy and fun from cover to cover, with well-rounded characters and a heavy lean into the erotica while also containing a surprisingly cohesive plot, I'd like to point you in the direction of Alethea Faust's Sex Wizards series. It's extremely queer (very poly/pan) and remarkably inclusive, the characters have flaws, and while there's no surprises about the contents of a series titled Sex Wizards, I was genuinely surprised by the inclusion of some fairly fringe kink that doesn't often reach the romance genre. 

This book has representation for gays, bisexuals, and nonbinary individuals. One character is represented with a physical disability. There is otherwise little else in the way of diversity. 

The following elaborates on my content warnings. These may be interpreted as spoilers, but I do not go into deep detail.
This book contains:
mentions of body shaming; alcohol use; non-consensual drugging; mentions of infidelity, incest; consensual weapon use (whips, blades ), blood play; potential body horror (tentacles, inhuman male anatomy, belly bulging); past deaths; grief; murder; mention of torture; mention of burn injury
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