A review by mspilesofpaper
The Palace of Eros by Caro De Robertis

emotional medium-paced

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

2.0

Thank You to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me an eArc.

I had asked for The Palace of Eros because it is marketed as a queer retelling of the Eros and Psyche myth, which was a great selling hook to me. (I think I'm still deeply influenced by Canova's Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss, which was part of my art lessons in the late 2000s.)

Unfortunately, the book isn't it. The myth of Eros and Psyche is considered as one of the greatest love stories/as one of the most beautiful love stories, and the author didn't manage it to keep the vibe. Instead, it is very a sex-heavy retelling with flowery prose. The prose is so flowery that it creates an entire garden and I wish someone told the author to use punctuation marks from time to time because they gifted us with phrases like this:

 "Over meals, on walks, as I sat at the loom weaving a tapestry out of finer thread than I'd ever used before - a simple design, two alternating colors, for fear of what would happen if I let my imagination merge with the motion of the threads, given the tumult inside my mind - I saw visions of what else I might ask for, what else might be 'your pleasure', things I should not think of and should not want: her hand in my hair as it had been the first night, her body near mine, her body on mine, her hands on me, her hands moving along me, would they be hard or supple, fast or slow or - her mouth on my neck - then what?" 

The paragraph is 13 lines long on my Kindle and technically isn't even a sentence as it ends with a question mark, which makes it a question.

Another example of "The author never learned to use punctuation marks and the editor failed at their job as well" is this:

 "She came here on some winged creature through the night sky, she is a woman free to roam the sky, a woman with a palace, a woman whose days are hidden from you, a woman who can do outrageous things to another woman’s body, a woman whose power is mountainous, whose strength is vast, whose charm is boundless, you’d never imagined such a woman could be, yet here she is, and far be it from you to anger her when she’s already given you so much, how could you ask for more, when she has chosen you for this adventure for some inscrutable reason you’ll never understand, just as it’s impossible to understand how this adventure can exist or what the scope of it will be, but there it is, the need to clasp it close and not let go because you want this life she’s offered you, want it with every fiber of your being, yet also want to hold on to your own knowing, however tiny it may be compared to hers." 

It's a lot of words to say nothing and reminds me of my essays at university where I would have added non-necessary bullshit to reach the word limit.

As for plot, there's not a lot of it. Of course, the original myth isn't rich with plot either but de Robertis' retelling is mostly sex. Either Psyche and Eros fucking at night or Psyche masturbating during the day (when she doesn't weave, paint or eat). It's pretty half just sex for half of the book and it's ... a lot. Psyche is borderline obsessed with sex and Eros uses it as a tool to avoid questions, which makes it yucky. At the point when something could happen (the trials), the author just told the reader what happened instead of showing it. In the end, the trials are skimped on, so the author can squeeze some dialogue between Eros and Aphrodite into the book, which results in an "everything is wrapped up offscreen" situation. 

In addition, to the very flowery prose: Psyche's chapters are written in the first person while Eros' are written in the third person, which is a weird decision and always irritated me while reading. It's a sharp contrast and Psyche feels like an unreliable narrator due to it at some points.

An interesting aspect of the novel is Eros' exploration of gender dynamics but I think it would have been better to discuss this as an academic essay instead of squeezing it into the novel.