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A review by cristoc
Our Satyr Prince by Dylan Drakes
0.25
I won't trust any more "ancient Greece inspired" books, thanks Dylan.
This book's marketing is as misleading as it could be, and I'm basing my statement on the little I've read, because no, I won't be finishing it. It only took 4% of the book (even though I got a lot farther than that, it did not get better) to understand not only that I hated it, but that the "ancient Greece" inspiration in this book was actually "ancient Rome" inspiration mixed with a few ancient grecian elements and lot of "yeah this is a fantasy book with a lot of world building that will eventually make sense, probably, but probably not!"; a lot of names are Latin, main character's name included; togas and stolas were worn in, you guessed it, ancient Rome; patricians were... yeah, not Greek. There were so many of these little but notable inaccuracies that I'm sure I missed a lot of them.
This superficiality also affects the poor world building, which consists of a painful rewriting of Greek mythology with names and stories that have no business sounding so dumb and the most incomprehensible disregard for the only thing that an "ancient Greece inspired" book with a queer cast could have both gone away with and benefited from: queernormativity. I haven't even read the whole book, but the amount of times I've had to read that the main character is a "pervert" or "degenerate" made me uncomfortable, even though I absolutely despise the main character; he might not be a "pervert" because of his preference of partners, but he is a classist, manipulative, xenophobic, opportunist and coward bastard, and the only thing that would make me finish the book is the possibility of seeing him suffer. I'm not sorry. But I am grateful for not having to watch unfold what seems to be an instalust relationship between the main character and the himbo that the love interest is. Lastly, the writing is...something. I haven't seen such an abuse of exclamation points since I've flipped through a children's book, and the amount of infodumps, anachronistic terms, uselessly long descriptions, and almost indecipherable paragraphs that require a few readings to be understood made the read even more... embarrassing? I can't explain how, but this book made me feel both indignified rage and second hand embarrassment due to how the characters seem more like caricatures than actual human beings.
This book was not for me and had this accurately been marketed as "generic pre-industrial fantasy world with a queer cast in a heteronormative society" I would have stayed away from it.
I received an eARC of the book from the author and this represents my honest opinion.
This book's marketing is as misleading as it could be, and I'm basing my statement on the little I've read, because no, I won't be finishing it. It only took 4% of the book (even though I got a lot farther than that, it did not get better) to understand not only that I hated it, but that the "ancient Greece" inspiration in this book was actually "ancient Rome" inspiration mixed with a few ancient grecian elements and lot of "yeah this is a fantasy book with a lot of world building that will eventually make sense, probably, but probably not!"; a lot of names are Latin, main character's name included; togas and stolas were worn in, you guessed it, ancient Rome; patricians were... yeah, not Greek. There were so many of these little but notable inaccuracies that I'm sure I missed a lot of them.
This superficiality also affects the poor world building, which consists of a painful rewriting of Greek mythology with names and stories that have no business sounding so dumb and the most incomprehensible disregard for the only thing that an "ancient Greece inspired" book with a queer cast could have both gone away with and benefited from: queernormativity. I haven't even read the whole book, but the amount of times I've had to read that the main character is a "pervert" or "degenerate" made me uncomfortable, even though I absolutely despise the main character; he might not be a "pervert" because of his preference of partners, but he is a classist, manipulative, xenophobic, opportunist and coward bastard, and the only thing that would make me finish the book is the possibility of seeing him suffer. I'm not sorry. But I am grateful for not having to watch unfold what seems to be an instalust relationship between the main character and the himbo that the love interest is. Lastly, the writing is...something. I haven't seen such an abuse of exclamation points since I've flipped through a children's book, and the amount of infodumps, anachronistic terms, uselessly long descriptions, and almost indecipherable paragraphs that require a few readings to be understood made the read even more... embarrassing? I can't explain how, but this book made me feel both indignified rage and second hand embarrassment due to how the characters seem more like caricatures than actual human beings.
This book was not for me and had this accurately been marketed as "generic pre-industrial fantasy world with a queer cast in a heteronormative society" I would have stayed away from it.
I received an eARC of the book from the author and this represents my honest opinion.