I read CAIT CORRAIN'S book | Crown of Starlight REVIEW
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ธ.ค. 2023
- For a limited time, get your first 6-bottle box, a $150+ value, for just $55. Follow my link brightcellars.com/rachelreads to take the quiz and see your personalized wine matches.
Support the affected authors:
Akure Phenix
Book: www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Twitter: / akanaphenix
Molly X Chang
Book: www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Twitter: / mollyxchang
Kamilah Cole
Book: www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
Twitter: / wordsiren
Bethany Baptiste
Book: www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Twitter: / storysorcery
KM Enright
Book: www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
Twitter: / km_enright
Frances White
Book: www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Twitter: / frances_writes
Hana Lee
Book: www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Twitter: / k_hana_lee
Katrina Kwan
Book: / knives-seasoning-a-das...
Instagram: / katrinazkwan
RM Virtues
Book: www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...
Twitter: / rmvirtues
Thea Guanzon
Book: www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...
Instagram: theagwrites...
Danielle L Jensen
Book: www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
Instagram: / c1csfudpkbw
Xiran's video regarding Cait Corrain: / c04-kqpsqxq
ARTISTS:
Intro art
Winter Weixelman: / mostwretchedcritter
Book cover art
Diana Dworak: / dianadworak
Art direction
Rachel Ake: www.rachelakedesign.com
Join this channel to get access to perks:
/ @readswithrachel
Patreon: / readswithrachel
Commissions: ko-fi.com/readswithrachel/com...
Merch: www.bonfire.com/store/reads-w...
Wishlist: www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls...
CONTACT ME:
Business inquiries please email me here: readswithrachel@thestation.io
All other emails go to: readswithrachel@gmail.com
Support Roma children and youth in Ukraine:
chuffed.org/project/support-r...
Support Palestinian children: www.pcrf.net/
Support Democratic Republic of Congo during their humanitarian crisis:
www.doctorswithoutborders.org...
SUPPORT INDIA DURING THEIR COVID CRISIS:
donation links
-www.careindia.org/
-www.projecthope.org/
SUPPORT COLOMBIA:
resources and info
-mailchi.mp/cb922315dfc8/sosco...
BLACK LIVES MATTER.
Resources:
-Massive list of places and people to donate to: nymag.com/strategist/article/...
-Find a protest or fundraiser near you: / events
Find literature to read
Watch Vee Kativhu's video on recommending books to learn about racism: • 10 books you MUST read...
-Support some Black youtubers by watching Myonna Reads' playlist of Black booktubers: • Black Booktubers
Support my channel
-Patreon: / readswithrachel
-Tip me on Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/readswithrachel
-Use my link to get $10 off your first Instacart order: inst.cr/t/VTNrRWxoYmZ6
Follow me on socials
TIKTOK: / rachelwithreads
INSTAGRAM: / readswithrachel
BLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/readswithrac... - บันเทิง
Thanks to Bright Cellars for sponsoring this video and for the limited-time offer! Click here brightcellars.com/rachelreads to get your first 6-bottle box, a $150+ value, for just $55!
A little off topic, but what lip product are you using that's apparently wine-proof?? It looks gorgeous.
@@thecatlurkingit’s the liquid matte lip from colourpop! It dries completely. I have it in two shades! Red and brown. I swear by it. Highly recommend.
@@Moebz818I plan to!
Thanatos is basically the angel of death. Not that he kills people but that guide pretty death angel.
Greeks could be pretty sexist, which reflects into the myths. And medea is great in the story, and later becomes a vengeful scorned lover , he did betray her really hard. Through ariadne and medea are pretty strong in the original as female characters with wits anfd agency.
Dunno penelope could be interesting how she over all that years keeps the people holding for her hand that harass her, and wait for her husband coming back, very late.
Thank you for listing all the affected authors in one spot. Makes it a lot easier to support them.
She should've just blamed Withcindy she might still have a book deal...if you get, you get it😂😂😂
i don't get it please explain 😭
@@baru0chan a youtuber, withcindy, made a video talking about this whole racist review-bombing fiasco where in which she made a joke that cait should've just blamed cindy instead of the apology cait *did* put out (because it was so piss-poor)
@@wooogie672 I SEE thank you 😭🤣
LMAO love it 😂😂
@@marzaj17 They aren't saying withcindy uncovered everything, it's an inside joke of withcindy's video.
I hate when Hera is portrayed as a 2D villain because she’s incredibly complex. She’s definitely not a good person/goddess but she’s permanently married to an cheating, egotistical POS while having maintain the role of being THE pure wife and image of motherhood. Zeus is the real villain, not her
Hera and Demeter always get the worst treatment in thoses retellings, it really show that people love to use the greek myth aesthetic but they never go deep into how complex thoses characters can be
I read one version where she did try to escape Zeus. She planned a coup with the other gods because Zeus was driving everyone insane, which is unsurprising. Unfortunately, Zeus found out and threatened to throw her into Tartarus alongside the Titans if she tried that again.
@@ZimVader-0017 thats an actual story in greek mythology lol, I read it a while ago so i cant remember the details... but it exists
And she didn't even want to marry Zeus to begin with! He forced himself on her, as per his usual MO.
Right! There were also many places within the cultural diaspora who saw Hera as a great protective being. One of her epithets is Hera Alexandros, Hera defender of men. I assume it's probably an extension of the protective, motherly nature, but warriors would carry Hera's favor into battle, bitch would throw down for them.
People need to remember that, from a religious aspect, the stories and myths are often not to be taken literally. They are a way for us mortals to understand the gods as they are often too complex for us. So for a person actually worshiping the Greek gods, is Zeus a...dude that does not respect the bodily agency of women? No, he's not. He's understood through the culture of the people who lived at the time, and they did not think women had rights. So the gods behave in a similar way to mortals because we can't understand them outside of our own mindset and biases.
Also, from a writing standpoint, it's lazy. Old, tired, troupy. It's 2023 people, we can do better. Why have the character at all in your story if you can't do anything interesting with her?
Now I understand why she was so insecure about her writing 💀
For real. good grief.
Yeah pretty much 😐
Hidden talent, keep it hidden
Or how she got so much of a boost with this book! This is such mediocre writing
Standards have really lowered over time.@@Fishyness18
The fact that the book would have launched well based on that gorgeous cover alone is making me fucking insane.
That's book box YA for you, to be honest. Having read a few book box picks... the quality of this book is not significantly lower than a good chunk of what ships in book boxes (there are exceptions! But most of these are that average).
I hate the cover, it looks so middle-grade. Something I’d see in the teens section at the library
I'm not saying good cover = good book, I'm saying this girl flipped the hell out because she was insecure when half the game is the cover. Maybe you don't like it but those of us who do you like YA would have jumped all over art that pretty. She would have sold. She has no reason to shit her pants (that is until they bought the book and read how bad it is)
Right? I had gotten the impression that the book was actually good and set up for success before the crashing and burning of the author... but now I am just so disappointed. And frankly surprised. Like, I didn't have any grand expectations, but this is so much worse than I'd thought.
I mean cover art is an art. I like to keep an eye out in thrift shops for old scifi and fantasy pulp novels for this reason.
she literally said: i'm gonna mix christianity, some names and things i read on wikipedia about greek gods and some starwars and called it a greek myth retelling... the audacity.
Don't tell me that she's guilty of pulling a Sarah Underwood and didn't actually read any of the source material that she was basing her retelling on as well as being a jealous, petty bitch on the internet.
Indeed. Crown of Starlight *truly* is as bad as it sounds. It reads like something I'd have crapped out at the last minute in my freshman creative writing class for a project I had procrastinated on all semester.
As a Greek person, I see this a lot in Greek-related media made by non-Greeks and it’s gotten a little tiring. Like if you take a genuine interest in the folklore and culture and decide to retell a story even as a non-Greek person, cool, that’s great. But after a while it becomes clear that for many of these authors our myths and folklore are no more than convenient plot and character templates that come with an aesthetic they like, that they can bend out of shape to tell their own stories no matter how irrelevant or far removed they are from the original story, culture and context, then slap on “Greek myth retelling” for marketability. That’s how you get these pervasive Christianised versions or otherwise off the mark pop-culture renditions of the myths and for some people, that's the only versions they'll ever know (like how Hades is often made to be a villain because through a Christian lens he looks like Satan, or how Demeter is usually painted as a hysterical, controlling mother who selfishly gets in the way of her daughter's romance instead of, you know... a mother worried sick about her daughter being married off without so much as a warning). That’s really not how you are supposed to handle folk stories, especially if you are pulling from a culture that isn’t yours.
So here's a list of things about this book that I find very funny, as an actual Cretan person:
- The idea that Cretans would be "heretics" to the cult of Dionysus, when his cult was actually huge here. The only difference being that he was worshiped as Zagreus- nevertheless a different form of Dionysus. That seems to be the case with other deities worshiped by the Minoans- for example the goddess Vritomartis is theorized to be the localized form of Artemis- so the idea that the religion of the Minoans is in some way diametrically opposed to that of the rest of Greece is pretty funny- and to be fair, in general the idea that there's a unified religion in ancient Greece is by itself funny; yes, most city-states worshiped the Olympians in one way or another, but each local cult usually had its idiosyncrasies. That's how you get the Spartans worshiping Aphrodite as a warrior goddess of fertility and battle, while Athenians worshiped her simply as a goddess of fertility- each fitting her into their cultural view of women (yes, warrior Aphrodite is a real historical thing, look up "Aphrodite Areia" and "Aphrodite Pandemos"). This is exactly what I mean when I say that retellings that clearly don't come from a place of genuine interest in and knowledge of the culture and history are wasted opportunities- modern writers are still happy to portray Aphrodite as an antagonist, as vapid, cruel, vain and envious (cue more misogynistic stereotypes, just as the Athenians did) but y'all have yet to write about badass warrior goddess Aphrodite even in yassified modern retellings. Get on it already, if you insist in retelling our myths at least retell the good stuff.
- Literally everything about her use of the Moirai. In the myths these three women are above the gods, weaving the very threads of fate that even they are beholden to, but sure, for this book I guess they work as enforcers of women's chastity just as well lol.
- That Minoan culture was in ANY way puritanical. Has Cait Corrain even *seen* Minoan clothing? Women wore dresses that completely exposed their breasts, men walked around nearly naked. Men and women meticulously groomed themselves, wore makeup, jewelry, elaborate head pieces and their hair long and loose alike. It was a culture that celebrated beauty and the finer things in life at every turn- not to mention they were most likely a very egalitarian or straight up matriarchal society. She had the chance to take a very niche and fascinating culture that not many people outside of Crete are exposed to and write something fresh out of it, but instead she opted to erase all that and replace it with basically Christianity, because she has no actual interest or love for any of the stuff she’s borrowing but simply wants to write yet another story about a sexually repressed woman escaping the clutches of a puritanical environment and into the arms of a man who fixes her with sex.
- More of a personal thing that note, I don't feel too strongly about: Artemis being portrayed as sapphic is all well and good, but I wish more modern writers would let her be aro/ace (which is more in line with the actual myths). I don't hate this depiction or anything and I've seen it done well, but I wish we saw more of non-sexual Artemis in modern retellings (nobody forced her to take a vow of chastity, it was her initiative) because ace/aro people also deserve more representation.
- Here's a petty one: Ariadne's last name is Tholos, which really just means firmament. Being a Greek speaker, it sounds awkward as hell to me and not at all in line with naming customs. Also, the phrase "I've been caught by the Cretan spec-ops" is objectively hilarious.
All this makes it even more infuriating to me that she tried to drag all those authors (especially POC authors) down to prop up her drivel. Like, you did this for what? For christian mom space erotica appropriating Minoan Crete?? Under different circumstances I'd be so excited for a fantasy, or even sci-fantasy story centering Crete, but this is such a wasted opportunity to do anything meaningful for anyone. Now I feel like running a Crete-related D&D campaign with sci-fi elements out of sheer spite...
@@chiefpurrfect8389Genuinely curious, how do you think people should handle folk stories when adapting them into something 'modern'?
I do have an actual interest in researching/reading them, mostly to take inspiration and for my own enjoyment. Not being able to branch out and enjoy other culture's stories and myths sounds boring, and I love that there's so many ways to tell a story.
@@cryforhelp7270 For me personally, a good retelling mostly boils down to feeling like that the writer has an accurate and holistic understanding of the myth/folk tale (of the source material, as well as what kind of culture and beliefs created it, what it meant to the people at the time and what it could mean to them or readers today) and is choosing to retell a specific story for a reason, not just as a cynical marketing strategy or because ohhh that culture's aesthetically pleasing. To anyone interested in retelling myths and folk tales, my advice would be to ask themselves what kind of story they are interested in telling and if it truly needs to be a retelling of an already existing one to begin with.
Then once you have that sorted it's a matter of choosing the right one for the story you want to tell. The myth of Eros and Psyche is probably not going to be a very good candidate if you want to write about the experience of being destructively in love with the wrong person (not unless you change it so much it's no longer Eros and Psyche anyway) but Medea's story or the myth of Narcissus and Echo are probably a way better choice.
Then once you settle on a specific myth you want to retell, it's simply a matter of figuring out the storytelling language to express the unique perspective you want to express. It can be a different genre, time period, place, whatever. Aesthetics aside however, my point is it should still be recognizably that myth at its heart even if things play out differently- or why are we even here?
Of course, good retellings do exist- I'm not saying folk tales and myths should be untouchable by foreign hands, just handled with a little more care than I usually see Greek myths being handled with. I just tend to not be very interested in retellings written by non-Greek people simply because I hardly ever feel like there's anything in these stories for me as a Greek person. Like the Percy Jackson series written by an American author, where our gods have left Greece (so of course they went to America) are written from a more christianized lens and there isn't a single shred of anything recognizably Greek about the characters or their culture. I understand a lot of people grew up with these books and are very fond of them, but I can't view this as anything short of someone forming a superficial fascination with foreign culture and treating it as their personal playground (Riordan has apologized, it's fine). All the girlies where gushing about Lore Olympus being a feminist retelling so I got into it see what it was about, only to see one of my most beloved myths of motherly love and a young woman finding herself in circumstances beyond her control, turning them to her favor and returning to her mother a queen, be turned into the millionth fanfic about a virginal woman with an overbearing mother and an older sad man getting it off. And as far as Hollywood is concerned, can I ask why, in our current era of discussions of the importance of cultural stories, representation and ethical casting, are Greek people seemingly almost never involved in projects that have to do with Greek culture or mythology in some way? Off the top of my head, the best and most recent I got is Melissanthe Mahut being cast as a muse in Sandman and that's it. The fact of the matter is, statistically the majority of Greek stories you've ever consumed has been told without us and has never been about us beyond shallow aesthetics.
And to be 100% clear, you have my permission to enjoy Percy Jackson, Lore Olympus or whatever else- I'm not trying to take these stories away from you. Just don't wonder why I or other Greek people may not be as interested in them.
Goodreads when an author is getting review bombed by racists: I sleep
Goodreads when a racist author is getting review bombed: Real shit??
💯
It kinda makes me wonder why people still use the site since it’s been so problematic for writers and readers.
Partially sunk cost, I think. People have been there for so long and don’t want to start over. I feel like it’s gotten worse since Amazon took over, but I’ve never used Goodreads enough to know.
@@TheRonnieaj Fair, but I also think people don't bother to look for other options. Many book reviewing tools have ways to transfer your data to their own platforms, to make the switch easier. Personally I think some part of it is laziness and some part of it is not caring about Goodreads as a very shady platform.
@@mwahaha3750do you have any recommendations for other platforms ? I’ve never used goodreads but in 2024 I wanna read and review what I’m reading
HI! Greek mythology nerd here. This book's twist of mythology is weird.
I don't mind a retelling of Ariadne and Dionysus, frankly I'm tired of Hades and Persephone adaptations, but 1) Ariadne's personality flip flops from girlboss to poor sheltered church girl constantly. And 2) The mythology is NOT EXPLAINED AT ALL. Like you said, newcomers to greek mythology will have absolutely no idea what's going on. Hell, even I got lost just hearing your synopsis. But, I will try and explain because it's one of my special interests and I want to convert people to my brainrot every chance I get, lol.
Ariadne trying to deal with purity culture would've been SO GOOD. Hera's wrath is basically a scare tactic to punish women for being too attractive and tempting for men (I.E: Zeus). I don't know why they made the Crete's worship the Moirai (the fates) instead of Hera, because Hera is the actual goddess of purity and marriage. Ariadne dealing with her own bodily autonomy after being told that she both has to be beautiful but not too beautiful would've been spectacular. But Cait clearly only understands the surface level of purity culture (I grew up with the ACE school system throughout the majority of my school career, so I know a thing or two.)
Dionysus does indeed marry Ariadne because he feels bad for Theseus abandoning her after his whole adventure with the Minotaur. However, he most DEFINITELY would not listen to some mortal about not having revelry. Because, you know...he's the GOD OF REVELRY. They could've had conversations about different types of relationships, like how they attend parties but they still love each other. In fact, it would've been cool to have Ariadne go from worshiping Hera to marrying Dionysus, one of the gods she hates the most. (There are a lot of gods she hates.) The fake dating trope does not work here because Hera is the GODDESS OF MARRIAGE AND SHE COULD TELL IF THEY WERE ACTUALLY MARRIED OR NOT. It always baffles me that authors with really great premises fumble the bag SO HARD. And to bring down so many BIPOC authors in the process. White women audacity at it's finest.
And you are correct, Artemis is mommy.
The society of ancient Crete (colloquially called the Minoans) is actually pretty fascinating. It's believed in was a matriarchy, which is massive contrast to the heavily patriarchal Greeks.
Minoan isn't a colloquial term is a formal academic term if a kind of arbitrary and innacurate one. One could choose to set the Minos story in Minoan Crete but its probably more set in latter Mycenean Crete. @@moonlight4665
@@moonlight4665 Oh, interestring! I don't know the actual history of Greece as a country, I only know the myth side of things, and even then I'm not a historian.
It also don't make no sense the division between the Moirai and the Olympian gods as though they had some beef with each other. Like...the Fates never had a cult that superseded the Olympian's in worship. They were seen as powers allied with the Olympians through Zeus. This plot would've been better served with the Norse gods rather than the Greek, where Odin is in direct conflict with the predictions of the future which tell of his inevitable doom, and goes out of his way to accumulate power to avoid fate. But if the author wanted to make that work with Greek deities, fine, go off sis, but you still have to explain it. Which she did not.
@@caitlinfitzgibbon9410 Ya!! It’s never explained why the Fates hate the Olympians. I am totally down for Olympians and Cthonics having beef or at least some type of animosity towards each other (Hades hinted at that, and they did that spectacularly well, leaving seeds for the sequel.) But she has to EXPLAIN WHY the fates don’t like them. Also they DONT EVEN MENTION ARIADNE’S CHASITY. So literally what is the point.
Asking Dionysus, DIONYSUS THE GOD OF LUST, WINE, AND PARTIES, not to have sex is b e y o n d me
Okay see that’s what I thought??? I was so confused
If Dionysus was being written true to character, he'd have *immediately* called Ariadne a total drab and dropped her. Dionysus has his pick of the mortal crop and wouldn't give any sort of chaste BS talk the time of day.
@@opo3628 tbh not even Madeline Miller, arguably the best at retellings, gets the characters right. It’s a feature of these stories, unfortunately.
The dissonance of trying to portray purity culture as bad but then trying to imply it's good by reinforcing it via forcing Dio to respect the tenets of purity culture...
Dionynus isn't god of lust, that's Aphrodite and/or Eros. Wine and parties sure but he's more a theatre, agriculture or even a military god that anything to do with lust. Not really a god of madness either anymore than Lyssa, Apollo and Aphrodite, most of the Greek gods covered subsets of 'mania' so being connected to madness doesn't make him THE god of madness outside of what alchohol does to people.
Expecting an Olympian in general to not be a fuckboy makes no sense in general but that's not specifically a Dionysus thing. The idea that Dionysus worship involved orgies outside of just what drunk people sometimes get up to at parties is Christian propaganda with no evidence to back it up outside of a single Roman conspiracy theory. Dionysus' main Greek festivals were either theatre based or women only, parties and revelry were sacred to Dionysus but not much more than how Christians also traditionally thank god for the food before eating.
Ariadne is abandoned by Theseus while pregnant in one version so there's a lot you could do with sex and various interpretations of the characters but the author clearly doesn't have the talent so I guess a bullet was dodged. After being potentially betrayed by Theseus it would make sense for Ariadne to not be keen on sex. Even a Greek (more Roman probably) inspired culture with some purity obsession isn't complete nonsense it would just take a lot more thought put into it.
Well damn! Let me dig up one of my old Yu-Gi-Oh fanfics and swap out the names with Egyptian gods. Get myself a book deal.
Lmao 🤣 about to dig up my old Mai-Hime ones and get a deal too 😂😂😂
Well… I mean… quite a bit of Yu-Gi-Oh back lore was heavily hinted at to be Egyptian so… that’s not too far fetched.
Lmao! It will probably be better than that book too!
😂😂😂😂😂😂 This comment absolutely wrecked me, I hope you get that book deal girl!
@@novalinnhe Thank you, I used to be lil popular back in Fan Fiction. Net days but that was 08 when the grammar mistakes and all flowed like wine 🍷 lmao
It's funny that you mentioned that Theseus would be the hero if this was another story because Theseus IS the hero in the original Greek myth lmao
And he's just as awful to Ariadne in that one, since he abandons her on the first island they come to. But that doesn't make him any less a hero for the Greeks, because the ancient Greek definition is different from the modern one.
@@citrinedragonfly according to Edith Hamilton Theseus was not much beloved outside of Athens and Hercules was more popular. Though I really didn't check if that statement is still true, it sounds like it is. Even from greek perspective Theseus is kinda annoying, and I'm not referring to Ariadne
Eh... hero for doing impressive things, yes. But the guy ended up exiled after his selfish actions brought destruction to Athens twice: when he kidnapped the Amazon Hyppolyta to make her his wife and her tribe came to rescue her and when he kidnapped Helen to make her his wife and her brothers Castor and Pollux went to rescued her. He died alone inva desert Island after being betrayed
Yep, he was the hero of the story. A horrible person, but hero in the "managed very impressive feats" sense ;)
It’s good to remember that within the cultural context of the time, “hero” was merely someone capable of impressive feats, not someone who did good. Many of the heroes of these myths did questionable things, but they weren’t necessarily meant to be seen as aspirational deeds (also most of them met bad endings in no small part due to their own flaws or bad actions, so there’s that).
Murdering your family was a pretty big no-no in ancient greece.
Also, the moirai were personifications of fate, and majority of their portrayals show them as the only beings to hold power over the gods.
But you know sure, boil them down to goddesses of chastity.
So the Moirai were said to be in control of fate, but that seemed to have nothing to do with Ariadne’s personal belief in them because anytime she brought up feeling convictions from her Moirai-based faith they were all about sexuality even AFTER she married Dionysus. It was such a weird book. I don’t understand what the author was trying to do with the Moirai.
And jealous of one singular person?! What a weird waste of the Moirai….
R U KIDDING ME XD
Why the hell turn the fates into chastity goddesses
She did WHAT to the moirai 😭
Seems like the "goddesses of chastity" thing was just the author wanting to give Ariadne christian purity culture issues... My personal pet peeve in sff stories like this is them making their religions basically just christianity in a new hat, but when it's a preexisting mythology??
"Fanfiction of a show I've never watched" sounds like the best way to describe this for real!!
Bad fanfiction
Right? It ain’t even good fanfiction at that😐
@@exomake_mehorololo that's implied bc a lot of fic IS bad by default and I say this as someone who's read+written it since the 00s lmao
tbh i wouldn't be surprised if this started as fanfic- some fanfic can be very good but when you're reading fanfic you understand that it's all amateur writers having fun, you're more willing to overlook flaws. this is very much giving amateur writer posting on ao3 yet it was supposed to to get published?
2 things I thought while watching this:
1) Cait's idea of research seems to be literally reading Lore Olympus just one time.
2) It makes me SO MAD that an agent and publishing house likely turned down a whole bunch of amazingly well written books, by people who were likely incredibly dedicated, just to publish what I now know is objectively trash. Written like middle grade with adult themes (and actually I've read middle grade books that are better than this), with a protagonist no one but a 13 year old girl could relate to (which wouldn't be bad if it was a YA, but obviously because of the themes, it's not).
Apparently the publishing industry is not a standard of excellence, it's just a marker of trends.
EDIT: HERA, (among other things) the Goddess of marriage, doesn't know??? HERA doesn't know about a fake marriage to get into Olympus? Am I missing something?
I was really hoping that somebody could explain to me how Hera brings up that she’s the goddess of marriage, but can’t use that to say definitively, whether or not they are real married or fake married. WHAT WAS THE POINT. I cannot understand this authors thought process and I was hoping that somebody could explain it to me but unfortunately, it seems the reality is even if you know Greek mythology this author is just a bad writer.
At least Lore Olympus has a much better, smarter Hera than this, I dare say she’s one of the better interpretations of Hera I’ve read.
@@amethystimagination3332 Lore Olympus doesn't have smart anyone or anything
Not the lore olympus 😭
That fake conversation they wrote to blame everything on that friend that didn’t exist told me everything I need to know about whether or not I would enjoy this book 😵💫
Yes the writing in that was so terrible 😂
kinda looked like she got it from an angsty narusasu fanfiction when she pulled the "I TRUSTED YOU 😡🤬"
Immediately gave away the game that she has no self-awareness of what believable dialog reads like..
I mean, it's genuinely fine to simply be a mediocre writer. She HAD THE DEAL IN THE BAG! She was going to be fine!! Sales would've been fine or possibly even good! (Obviously reviews were always gonna rip her to shreds.... But reviews don't pay your bills ffs) I really hope the awareness of this controversy gets those other authors extra visibility. I'm feeling optimistic about this outcome!
@@klaratehcoolcat That's the CRAZIEST part of this to me. Girl literally secured the bag, had even movie rights, and still felt the need to do all this??
Same. Good/compelling villainy is usually what carries a scifi/heroic fantasy story for me!
As a Greek i will say the exploitation of my culture in those retellings when authors don't regard the original source needs to end. I like the inspiration it brings to artists and authors and mamy have created great books.
But authors like Cait view it only as an aesthetic and an easy way to gain attention because Greek mythology is pretty popular.
Ariadne didn't have an oppressive life. She had a pretty decent life and was smart (being the one to help Theseus) and had a great ending with marrying Dionysus.
Having her showing Cretans as oppressive insults the great Minoan civilization who had women in leading roles and had more rights than Classical era Greece.
This author should have just made a story with entirely new characters instead 😅
Thank you for telling us your opinions as a modern day descendant of the people, it's really cool to hear from an actual greek person. I didn't know about the Minoans
@@annajensen7360 they were very advanced at that time. Women having opportunities like men and even taking part in leaping bull festivals.
Their art was colourful and their fashion extravagant but also very pretty.
Also the bull was a very sacred animal to them and they had a Snake goddess in which some historians speculate it's Ariadne
@NotVille_ it was done by artist Diana Dworak
@NotVille_ i edited it because the first name wasn't the correct one
Cait Corrain:
> Is a feminist, self-proclaimed.
> Writes a story where she degrades a historically progressive society into one that horribly oppresses their women.
> Pats herself on the back for a job well-done of uplifting women.
😑
“I’m being gaslit by my entire world” is peak Cait Corrain. When you read her negative reviews of other books, it’s obvious that she had extreme main character syndrome and viewed the rest of the publishing world as a conspiracy against her. She frequently brought up how “everyone” who liked certain books were wrong or “on drugs” and needed to rethink their preferences.
Turns out she's also a trust fund baby who literally begged her community for money several times. It all falls into place...
@JudeGarner-vn1sx "Her type" I'm dead 😭
It's giving James Patterson's "There's no more room for writers like ME anymore." Aka the author on basically the NYT bestseller's list every year despite having not written anything in over two decades.
Some authors can be given the world and that wouldn't be enough because other people are living in it.
@JudeGarner-vn1sx yes, very common, sadly 😅 and will probably become even more so as traditional publishing YA-ifies itself and relies increasingly on ego-driven social media and follower counts to pre-select who gets to be an author.
Do you know where I can read these negative reviews, I want to see if they look similar to my 3 star reviews?
my favourite activity for republished reylo fanfiction is “guess which character is supposed to be finn” because if nothing else reylos will always be transparently racist and rewrite finn to be the most obnoxious, unsympathetic character in the book lol
Random, but I always felt bad for Finn: He's the only one that knew the love triangle even existed.
I was so scared when they brought up the Minotaur because they love putting Finn in "overprotective brother roles" that I was just like "DEAR GOD PLEASE TELL ME SHE DIDNT"
The ugly noise I made reading this comment 😂 the last few years so much of internet culture has tried to rewrite reylo history to remove the racism and it's driven me insane bc I'm like y'all it's kinda baked into the ship 💀
The only acceptable Finn treatment in a reylo ship is one that ships him with Poe ;)@@fortunamajor7239
It's actually sad because I felt Finn was actually the best character, at least in the first movie. The idea of a stormtrooper who turned against the first order is extremely interesting compared to villainous edgelord with daddy issues #30238 and a generic protagonist with no ties to society.@@katherineeaster5799
That note about "if this were another book, we'd be rooting for Theseus" is actually kind of interesting if you do know Greek mythology. Because in Greek mythology Theseus is one of the great heros and you're meant to root for him. It's wild that she couldn't unpack his story in a way that made you sympathize with the minotaur though because you could throw a rock on tumblr and hit a post recontextualizing how terrible the minotaur's story really is. It would have been ridiculously easy to reframe Ariadne in a way that was sympathetic to her and her half brother and stressed how much of a frat bro ahole Theseus was.
yeah most people who know greek stuff HATE theseus
The Hades videogame did this way better than every story in a book and it`s so sad
I actually read a spicy 18+ short webcomic that does a better job of making the Minotaur more sympathetic than whatever the hell is going on here
Jorge Luis Borges created more sympathy for the minotaur in two pages than what this author did in 300+ pages (for those that haven't, GO read House of Asterion, it is a short story retelling)
The Minotaur’s dad was not “somebody”. I so hate to tell you this, but he is half man and half bull in the _purest_ way, gurl👀 His mama is Pasiphäe (like Ariadne and her 7 human siblings) and the Cretan Bull, who is a literal beautiful bull who was gifted to king Minos by Poseidon (in most telling, for Minos to sacrifice). She got down with the Bull.
Is it really Greek mythological with out at least a little bit of beastiality?
Which _should_ have played into Ariadne's pressure to be truly enticing to men while remaining perfectly pure. Imagine your mom being _that woman_ who fucked a bull in madness and now children are sent to their deaths to make some use of her parents hubris.
"Oh, but that's too mature".
Yes. Yes it is. It's almost like you should change the age range. Somethings cannot be simplified.
@@siennahartle9069 + incest
Why did you not mention that Daedalus (father of Icarus the wax wings man, who also built them both the wax wings) was commissioned to build a hollow bull mount shaped after a beautiful female bull for Pasiphäe to climb into while she was stricken with bull-lust. And he did it, clearly
Wasn't the whole "lusting after a bull" thing a god punishing her by having Eros shot her with his love arrow or am I misremembering?
Bit of an ancient world and mythology buff (Egyptian, Greek, Nordic, etc). The original definition of cult just meant a system of veneration of a particular god or object. There were tons of cults in ancient Egypt and Greece and no real cohesive single religion. You get cults a lot when you have a pantheon or numerous religious figures (there used to be cults of some of the saints, for example, I believe). The cult of Athena would just be worshippers of Athena, for example. Cult came to mean the more sinister or strange religious practices with a charismatic leader (cult of personality) only about the 18th and 19th centuries (if I remember right).
So true.
Pretty sure the modern definition of Cult is a 20th century American thing so even latter but the stymatisation of cults does go back to anti-Masonry in the 19th century and Witch Hysteria before that.
Even the term 'Cult of Personality' actually fits the original defintion of Cult more than the modern one in its original context around figures like Stalin who operated on a completely different scale to most 'cults'.
I thought it was also (cult from occult - shadowed, hidden) specific to a religion with practices or beliefs that weren't supposed to be discussed with outsiders. Not necessarily sinister, just private.
I assumed it was more of a translation problem.
The similarity between 'occult' and 'cult' influenced the use of the term by the Christian anti-cult movement but 'cultus' is a common word in ancient Roman religion while 'occultism' was only coined by French Freemasons in the 1800s.
'Occult sciences' was coined a few centuries earlier to refer to astrology and related forms of ritual magic but still far latter than the Roman period. Romans used the Greek loanword 'mysteria' to refer to magic and secret religious ceremonies rather than the latin 'occultus' which just refered to generally hidden things. @@Eloraurora
So basically, its a kitchen sink fanfic. cait finally actually re-read her own book and said “oh sh*t” and self sabotaged the hell out of it. its literally a cringe-fest of every trope and popular story setting from the last 5 years. I appreciate the sacrifice of reading this so i wont have to.
Nothing can ever justify what she did, but I guess she had reason to be concerned about her book release… yikes.
The father can't kill Ariadne because Family murder is the worst of all crimes in Greek Mythology. Wouldn't have been hard for one character to mention that at some point.
I have a degree in Classical Languages and Literatures and taught Intro to Greek and Roman Mythology at my university. I read all the major retellings. This sounds like a big steaming pile. And, honestly, mythic characters are archetypes and/or placeholders; if the author is doing their job correctly, you shouldn't need to be familiar with the particular myth or deity going into this. Also, I plan to create an altar in your name and worship you as goddess of honesty. Bless.
I think Athena would probably be willing to give a blessing, seeing as Rachel is a warrior for genuine wisdom and knowledge being shared openly. 🤔
No literally a real "retelling" would be far more faithful to the stories these characters come from, settings aside. Just like westside story for Romeo and Juliet. This is just stealing the garnish and aesthetics of ancient Greek worship and twisting it into some kink stroking Chasity piece.
do you have any reccs? I did like Ariadne and I loved Circe but I have been a little disappointed lately by the retellings that I have read more recently(Electra, Stone Blind)
@@claudiafernandes1150 galatea by madeline miller ive heard is good! its short and i haven’t actually read it, but my mom has and she liked it a lot.
@@lukaluukaa From what I've heard she tends to miss when it comes to characterization staying accurate to the myths, but she's a very talented writer. I won't make any judgements myself until I read her work, of course! My mom really enjoyed Circe :)
I feel called out that "magical queer murder mystery at sea" was exactly what it took to sell me on that book. 😅
I truly did not need to say anything else lmao I know the audience of that book, me included, was already sold
Haha yup, she got me with that description too.
Fr I don't even need to know anything else, it's in my TBR already
17:15 "it felt like people playing _The Sims_ instead of writting character arcs" *I love that description* it really nails how it feels when the characters in a romance have no chemistry between them
I’m mostly upset that she took the idea of Moirai, GODDESSES OF LIFE, and seemingly did nothing with the concept of time or birth, life, and death.
But I’m glad she didn’t because that’s what my project is about.
We win some, we lose some.
Your project sounds awesome btw.
Moirai are goddesses of fate... The goddess of childbirth was Eileithyia and the god of death was Thanatos.
@@miss1of2 if you want to get technical. My point still stands that they were a very missed opportunity
For those wondering how she got published, some Reylos who knew her pointed out on Twitter she's old money. Might be related. Just fyi.
Now that makes a lot of sense
What does old money mean?
@@farnregen generational wealth essentially
@@Grey_3438 like nobels? Pass down and maintaning being rich/wealthy?
@@farnregen Pretty much. Being rich also means she probably has easier access to influential people that could secure her a book deal, no matter the actual quality of her work.
Me: "jfc this sucks."
- "It's Always Sunny in Olympus."
Me: "Fuck right the hell off. Ma'am, *that* is a bridge too goddamn far."
🤣🤣🤣
It's also the laziest refference ever. They're in Olympus, and Dionysius is watching a TV show called "It's always sunny in Olympus"? That's awkward and shallow. Why not "It's Always Sunny in Phrygia" or "It's Always Sunny in Atlantis" or "It's Always Sunny in Ithaca" ... hundreds of cities from Ancient Greece, Ancient North-East Africa and the Ancient Middle East are mentioned in the Greek Myths, any of them would work fine as just a quick joke
TO BE FAIR... the Olympians and the Gang have a disturbing amount in common with each other. Both groups of delusionally petty, sometimes murderous narcissists who constantly scheme against each other at the drop of hat and ruin the lives of the people around them while facing little to no lasting consequences. A depiction of ancient Greek mythology specifically in the style of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia could be pretty brilliant in theory. Especially with Dennis's antics - "I AM A GOLDEN GOD!!!" and "because of the implication."
I'd like to bring "It's Always Sunny In Ogygia" because Nobody could find it....
The fact that Corrain had the stones to compare her book to Gideon the Ninth is just hilarious
I really recommend Ariadne's Crown by Meadoe Hora. It was such a good Ariadne and Dionysus retelling, and Meadoe is an indie author!
❤❤ thank you for the recommendation!!
Ooooo sounds cools
Such a beautiful cover! If I was the artist commissioned to make the cover and all this drama came out, I would be devastated.
Tell me the author knows nothing about ancient Greece without telling me... 🙄
Writing Christian purity culture nonsense and changing the font doesn't make it Greek 😂 It's also very lazy world-building and writing in general, but it's completely on-par with the excerpts you read. As a Greek mythology girlie, I'm glad this book won't be inflicted on the world😅
Also, if you WANTED a greek purity godess (or a greek purity trinity) Artemis is RIGHT THERE and Athena and Hestia are explicitly chaste as well. (Im an aroace PJO fan so who the not into romance greek divinities are was very important to teen me lol - my favourite is Athena but I think pop culture would think about Artemis first. Also I assume someone wanting to shoehorn in purity culture would be blind to the sapphic interpretation of Artemis)
@@lagggoat7170 yeah!! yes!! that or just use hera, one of the literal scare tactics so women were Too attractive to other men. i feel like if she wanted to have ties to christianity's purity culture what better than the goddess of marriage? then the forced purity would be tied to a lack of body autonomy (waiting for your future husband)
And weirdly enough, there's a lot to talk about with Christian purity culture and how women themselves will often put other women down for not dressing "appropriately" or for not wanting to eternally tie herself down to some milquetoast husband. I've seen a lot of Christian women say that marriage is not about being in love or happy, but holy. Is it their way of reclaiming the trauma of not having their own sense of individuality? Are they that brainwashed? There can be a pretty good discussion about this, I mean.
I don't think Cait Corrain nor the editor changed the font so that it looks "more Greek", I think that's a dyslexia-friendly font so that everyone can read it better
@@thedeliveryboy1123I think by font they mean the names.
Goodness. This sounds like a mess of half-baked choices.
I'm assuming the maenads and Ariadne did not get ecstatically ritually drunk, run through the woods, and tear off their male partners' bits with their bare hands like their mythological counterparts did. That would have been hardcore.(maenads are very scary.)
I doubt they even tore man apart and mistook his head for lion’s in their madness
Wait did Ariadne tear up Dionysius a la the orphean Dionysius story thing?
"In another story Theseus would be the main character"
Oh that's just *chef's kiss*
I am so embarrassed by that now that I know 🤦🏻♀️
@@ReadswithRachel Nah, you should be proud that it clicked despite having no knowledge of Greek mythology!
It's so strange to see something which had an entire NOVEL's worth of space in which to establish Greek mythology fail so spectacularly. So many authors have been able to gain readers with little knowledge of it. Hell, the game Hades establishes the mythology in a few dialogue boxes. It seems like nothing of value was lost.
hades appreciation!
“It’s Always Sunny In Olympus” in contrast with that beautiful cover gave me whiplash.
A really good Greek myth retelling that absolutely nails recreating the religious aspect is “Till We Have Faces” by C.S. Lewis. It’s a retelling of Psyche and Cupid (aka very similar to the Beauty and the Beast story) told from the perspective of Psyche’s sister. Just absolutely a classic and beautiful retelling; it’s one of my favorite works of fiction ever.
And if you like stream of consciousness then Cassandra by Christa Wolf is fantastic. It might be a little less approachable if you aren’t familiar with the myths, but it goes hard.
thanks for the rec; this sounds interesting :)
if you want more greek myth content and are open to non literary works, you should listen to Hadestown, which is a retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. Its a broadway play, the entire soundtrack is here on TY, and the best part is that when listening to the soundtrack, you dont miss any dialogue since the whole thing is sung.
There's also Epic: The Musical, which is based off of The Odyssey, and focuses heavily on the relationship between Odysseus and Athena.
And Stray Gods, a musical video game (watching a playthrough is a good way to enjoy the songs if you are not the gaming type).
And Ill mention Overly Sarcastic Productions here too, they dont really retell the myths (and dont talk about greece alone) but they explain/analyze the original myths and how they evolved over time as well as history in an interesting way (my favourite YT channel)
She should listen to the og soundtrack first tho lol
She could also try Ulysses Dies at Dawn, an album by a British group called The Mechanisms. It's as much storytelling as it is music, and retells several of the Greek myths within a sci-fi setting.
Webtoons also have amazing retelling
When you said she compared part of her book to Gideon the Ninth I nearly screamed out loud. If there's someone of modern time that I would never compare myself to, It's Tamsyn Muir. The Locked Tomb series made me never want to write again (affectionate).
No like seriously! I gasped! That was a big comparison 😅
Jeez like you can't just compare yourself to one of the best fantasy series of the century. Tamsyn is seriously talented, what was Cait smoking???
@@danebirbhaha7520Nah. THE MILLAINUM.
@@danebirbhaha7520 a drug called narcissism
Bro if i butchered greek myth that bad AND wrote such a crappy book, i would feel threatned by other new releases too
okay yeah you can 100% tell she just filed the serial numbers off her reylo fanfic and chose to publish (which on its own is not bad!! so many of the popular romcoms and erotica novels are just repackaged fanfic) - the issue is when you fail to transition the story from the fanfic style to published style. all the things you mentioned about how she was very lazy with world building and just assumed that the reader would fill in the blanks and relied on a bunch of tropes - that's a hold over from a fan writer perspective. which is one of my big gripes with popular booktok novels nowadays - i'm a HUGE fanfic reader (15+ years) and when i pick up a book and feel like i'm scrolling through ao3 thats an instant NO to me. if i wanted to read fanfic i wouldn't have bothered to pick up a book yknow?
anyways glad i didn't read it (it had been on my tbr purely for the gorgeous cover before this mess happened) and glad she got her comeuppance. word in the reylo fandom was that cait had a history with treating her fellow writers like shit and negatively reviewing/harassing them so it doesn't come as a surprise that she did what she did. sooner or later that shit catches up with you.
Actually from what I know, she had a popular reylo esports fanfic that she tried to publish. When that failed she worked on an original novel which became this book. I don’t read fanfic though so I could have missed it if she had a fanfic that she based this on.
So, from the legend I recall, Minos, back when he was a prince, needed a way to beat his brother for the throne, so he begged the god of the sea, Poseidon, for a sign of his favor. This was important because Poseidon was the biggest god to the people of the island nation of Crete. Poseidon agreed and gave him a beautiful white bull with the promise that Minos would sacrifice the bull back to him after he became king. But, the bull was so beautiful Minos kept it, pissing Poseidon off, which is widely agreed to be a bad move.
Indeed it was as Poseidon put a curse on Minos's wife to fall in love with the bull. Shenanigans ensued and she wound up pregnant by it, giving birth to the Minotaur, whose name is Asterius. Because Asterius was a creature who shouldn't exist, he couldn't eat normal food for a bull or a human, he could only eat the flesh of man. Minos asked the Oracle of Delphi (famous Ancient Greek prophet lady) what the hell he should do about this and she tells him to build a labyrinth to keep the Minotaur from the rest of the world. So he does, sacrificing young men and women, specifically fourteen Athenian young men and women- who he was able to bully their nation into giving after winning a war against them that he launched because Athenians killed his son- to the Minotaur every seven years. This obviously pisses off the Athenians, including one of their princes, Theseus, who sets out to slay the Minotaur.
Theseus lands in Crete and meets Ariadne, Minos's daughter, who falls in love at first sight. She gives Theseus a thread which he can use to keep track of his way in the confusing Labyrinth, with the promise that he'd marry her afterwards. Theseus then slays the Minotaur and elopes with Ariadne, but quickly falls out of love with her. He abandons her on the island of Dia and Dionysus finds and marries her. The order of these two events varies on the retelling. Ariadne then joins Dionysus in Olympus as a goddess of weaving and they live happily ever after.
Also, about Dionysus, the backstory the book gave was mostly right, except for the fact that when his mother, Semele, was killed he was incinerated as well leaving only his heart. Zeus then completed his incubation not through some magical ooze, but through his balls and that's why Dionysus is a full god, because a god did technically give birth to him.
He wants to be a part of the Pantheon because it's his birthright. He's technically the most worthy due to being literally born by the King.
Great summary!
@nox6687 I read that it was Zeus’ thigh. Maybe that was a euphemism for balls?
@@MissCaraMint Yeah, thigh was an old-timey euphemism for loins. It also happens in Genesis in the Bible. The use of the euphemism, I mean, not the sewing into balls bit.
This feels like the author changed her mind of making the book sci fi and went full fantasy with the gods.
That was really common in the 80s.
Or maybe she wanted it to be a Science Fantasy-a combination of both genres-from the start but couldn’t quite manage them properly.
Aside from all the racist shenanigans this author pulled, Greek myth retellings are often iffy for me. You've got to explain enough for those without that existing knowledge of the myths but then there are those who know more than the roughest sketches of what those myths are, and you're bound to make them cringe away.
I fell in love with the concept with Firebrand by Marion Zimmer Bradley as a preteen but haven't found another as an adult, save for Circe by Madeline Miller.
Side note: Ladies on ancient Crete wore long skirts and breast-baring tops. Young girls and boys both took part in the ancient sport of bull leaping, and young girls had their heads mostly shaved until puberty.
Minoan culture is fascinating and complex, it's a pity it's turned into something as lame as this lady wrote it.
if you loved Circe, I would HIGHLY recommend Song of Achilles as well. in fact, it’s my favourite out of the two and it’s just as raw & heartbreaking as Circe…
I guess if you're fine with YA, there's Medusa by Jessie Burton, as I've recommended before in the comments.
The books good if ya like complex relationships, morally grey protagonists, snakes, and the complex nature of the sea.
Trigger warnings: --✓
Sexaul assault, victem-blaming, murder, patriarchy
Not far into this but it's bizarre to tell Ariadne's tale as a romance. Especially with the format described in the synopsis. Her story is mostly about heartbreak & betrayal. Dionysus shows up at the very end in a Deus Ex Machina "happy ending". There's no romantic beats in the original, so how can it be a retelling of it? Ariadne is an awesome main character but not for a romance.
Not to mention in some of the versions of the myth Dionysus “claims her”….and it’s not really like a love story. Cait’s book isn’t a retelling, it’s just rewriting the entire story!
That's later versions of the tale this is based off the pre homer tellings and was drastically changed by sexists poets that's came post Homer to make women suffer as women were bad in his eyes
@@ayajade6683 I want to believe you but do you have a source so I can learn more about these previous versions?
@@annajensen7360
Edit: Please report the comment stealing bot NotVille_ as they're literally stealing multiple comments in the thread and do so on multiple channels
any book that talks about the origin and alterations of myths especially if they look at how the Romans altered Greek mythology in translation. Even better if it covers Victorian era and Christian alterations. Just be warned some mythology is a nightmare of alterations and/or fragments of lost civilizations mythos.
My textbook was called something like origins of mythology which covered how later authors like Ovid drastically changed myths ex: Medusa. pre Ovid she was either already a gorgon but mortal unlike her sisters which is why she was given her turning people to stone curse or she was a human consensually in relationship with Poseidon then gets cursed by Athena some point after becoming pregnant with Chrysaor and Pegasus. Ovid rewrote it to be a punishment as he was trying to make it about an anti-authoritarian message as he tended to do with all the gods but he was popular enough to inspire artists in the Renaissance as the church didn't find his versions blasphemous
@NotVille_ if you can find the textbook title/main author I would definitely love to read this!
This review is somehow so much more fun based on how very obviously little you know about this mythology. Because you are right...if the author assumes a base level of knowledge of myths, then this slightlyyyy makes more sense (at least to me) but the fact that you dont, highlights how this plot hasn't been thought through.
You aren't dumb. This book is for wayyyyy too specific an audience😂
The state of the publishing industry is dire if stuff like this keeps getting deals while POC authors continue to struggle getting anything out the door. Part of it is racism, but part of it is that Wattpad-quality fiction is being printed and sold. It felt like 15 years ago the number of absolutely mediocre books was at an acceptable level, and now everywhere you look it’s just drek on top of drek. It feels like audiences’ standards have lowered. I am fully willing to accept that my attitude is very Boomer but damn, for every stride that POC and diverse perspectives make in pushing their art into the mainstream there is an equal level of mediocre white person there to ‘balance’ the scales.
Exactly! I know taste is different now but I picked up a few modern books recently and wow. Just wow. The quality compared to some books I read from about 15-20 years ago even 10 years ago is wild. And I’m Gen Z so it’s not as if it should be that way for someone my age. Of course this issue isn’t entirely new but it’s moved from a couple YA paranormal books to any genre I feel.
agreed! i grew up reading HEAVILY of both published and online wattpad-like writing and i have always enjoyed both, you CAN find gems of great writing on wattpad and similar sites, BUT something else I do NOW as an adult is read really bad wattpad like books that are officially published, and it really does feel like the quality of writing has gone down a lot, that the published industry saw the love of wattpad and said, "MONEYYYYYY!!!" but then didnt actually find the gems?? (i.e look at everything that was actually a harry styles or twilight fanfic and its VERY obvious and very cringe) They just took the writing without improving it or bringing it UP to the standard that it should be because so much of it reads like....a high schooler wrote it....which is fine when its a piece of fanific or a free story being written and posted weekly, but is not okay when people can pay upwards of $20 for a hardcover book. Also I was born in the year 2000, i love love love romance, it is not romance that is the issue, it is publishing making awful choices.( those last 2 are just to say that its NOT a boomer attitude, and its not that i hate romance stories, i love a trashy romance more than anyone, but bad writing is bad writing, bad writing is not approachable)
It certainly seems that shooting herself in the foot has done the entire publishing industry a solid. This book is wretched! Fan fiction writing is spilling out everywhere. The publishing industry is really ill if this made it through to the final product.
Sorry for asking, did you mean dreck? It threw me off while reading, but all good eh 😅
Honestly, i looked some books up after youtubers made videos to that drama and I looked at some 1 star reviews that where pretty long and kinda show many flawes of said book/arc. The one that interest me the most didnt looked good anymore.
But then I'm thinking "maybe I like it?" Because idk my reading taste in books, I dont have that much books (anymore), I read more Manga.... Yeah Manga and I have less problems buying them blindly than books.. I just rather watch negative reviews to entertaine myself (books).
Soo idk man, at one hand i wanna support, at the other hand are covincing reviews that it sounds kinda abturning... But at the other, do i really care about this?
I don't even know anymore, should I wait until the book comes out and people talk about it? Just pre order it? 🤔
I disagree. You’re only seeing so many bad books now because there is more access to them via the internet. They get found easier. There was absolute horrid books years before the internet was a big thing. It’s just technology broadcasting it to us more.
We have a cat named Artemis as well, but it has since devolved into Snartemis, and now Sneet Snart. Other two kitties are Pangur and Oberon. Former kitties have been named Hermes, Nuadha and Helios. I studied classical and medieval lit at uni. First year of uni I came out, then got a puppy. I named the puppy Sappho. Honestly, I had trouble following what you were going on about and I am more than familiar with the mythology.
Omg see mine didn’t devolve into Snartemis but it DID devolve into Fartemis and now my children just call her “fart butt”
@@ReadswithRachel I humbly request that you pet little miss Artemis Fartemis Fart Butt on my behalf. 🥺
I have a cat named Artemis too! I call her Arty :3 Her sister is named Demeter (which i know is not how the gods are actually related but those names fit them individually) who i call . meter because its kind of funny . i havent even watched this video yet i just saw this comment and thought it was cool we have a cat with the same name
@girlrot Artemis is an excellent cat name because they do good hunting! Sneetle is restricted in what she can hunt but she's a good girl and does a good job at hunting pink fluffy octopuses and toy mouseys.
@@angelawossname aww!! Im glad shes got plenty of stuff to hunt :3
I feel like the author was trying to flex her greek knowledge, but it's like sound bite knowledge that is the equivalent to name dropping.
Ex:
She looks like death, Thanatos. Thanatos is the personification of death in some classical works. This is in contrast to Hades the god OF the dead/underworld. Hades is often misunderstood to be the God of Death by laymen. Think Grim Reaper (Thanatos) vs Lucifer (Hades).
That's a flex then when the author drops Thanatos' name, but it doesn't MEAN anything to readers without the background. And the prose doesn't engage with the idea Death is someone you can meet in this world, and how the character naming him MET him.
Also the fact he is tired/sleep deprived MIGHT be a joke on the fact Thanatos is the brother of Hypnos (sleep).
I think Rachel was super valid pointing out the Author's fanfiction roots because this seems to just be Greek Myth fanfiction. As a fanfiction writer, I am very pro-fanfic but I think authors that gain too much fame within their fandoms forget that while fanfiction works a lot of creative muscles it can weaken other skills that are less relevant. Like setting up your world or characters. Fic writers are incredibly creative but they have a guaranteed buy in from their readers. That grace doesn't extend to original fiction.
Also Galen was the first physician to assign parts of the soul to locations in the body which makes the Galen's Anatomy joke both clever AND annoyingly cringe. Which is kind of a feat
Also Jo Walton's the Just City is a really good book that is speculative fiction and also has mythological figures BUT there is some rough stuff in there in regards to sex, sexual assault, pregnancy/child rearing and slavery that is, I think, necessary to what the book is trying to do. However I don't want anyone to be surprised so maybe check out some reviews ahead of time.
To be fair that was also the only joke Rachel quoted i actually giggled at😔🖐️
i write fanfic from time to time too and i will be the first to say that fanfic writing and writing "traditionally" are two completely separate things with their own skillsets!
it's part of the reason why i hate the fanficification of traditional literature; like you said, with fanfic writing you don't have to do as much world-building and characterization because they're already existing for the fandom you're writing within. a lot of these books published nowadays need to go through major developmental editing because of this crossover. cait's book isn't as egregious as something like fourth wing and iron flame, but what was supposed to be published doesn't even constitute as a 2nd draft to me
yeah, I hate to agree with the "oh the young kids are reading fanfiction and ruining literature", but even though I will read 10 one shot fluffy fics of characters I love, that's only because I like them from the original source. People filing the serial numbers off and expecting me to care about their 'totally not fanfiction, guys' is what I hate. I have a great idea that could either be a fic or a book, but I'm working on the fic because it involves a lot of the characters internal motivations, and it would be a different story if people didn't know them and I had to do the work to create them and add them naturally.
It's also annoying that it's never the truly brilliant fanfics/fic writers that get publishing deals. It's always the blandest, Hallmark + smut ones
just wanted to say Rachel I really appreciate the alcohol content warning, I'm not in recovery but have some trauma that's alcohol related and so having it mentioned beforehand was like a breath of fresh air, thank you
What she did with Theseus is inexcusable to me. An explanation:
Theseus wanted to kill the Minotaur from jump, he was on a mission. Making it Minos' decision is like ???? he doesn't want this thing to die, what the fuck lol. Maybe it's like that in some retellings but it's not like the Athenian royal family were like "yeah throw my first born son in there, go ahead" without a greater plan besides "beg this villainous bastard to free my people." Like, huh?
Theseus urges Ariadne to help him bc women are so passive in Greek myths you can't imagine this girl forced to spend her time in the Labyrinth is like "wow a hot guy, now's my chance to escape." How do you get as a prince a vulnerable sheltered princess like Ariadne to help you? EXACTLY. YOU FUCKING KNOW IT WASN'T "oh you could be my tactician OR..." It was literally "hey baby girl" and schmoozing his way to help her with the promise of escape and marriage. There's no knowing who he is on a political level for this OG version of Ariadne who again for all intents and purposes is just sheltered--she wouldn't have a promise of being an heir, she just does what she's told.
So when Theseus betrays and abandons her, that's him taking advantage of her trust in him--she was never going to betray someone whose interests aligned with hers, but he just decides to abandon her. I like the added layer Rachel adds where, yeah, that whole royal family fucked over Athens, why should their savior marry Ariadne... Thing was, Theseus wouldn't have been a hero without Ariadne. She comes up with a way to escape and I don't even remember whether or not the Minoatur dies because if they couldn't get out of the labyrinth, it wouldn't have mattered if the minotaur was dead or not!
Essentially it's the greatest "my manipulative ex seriously left me to die" story--by and large we feel bad for Ariadne and are relieved she's allowed to be the wife of a God like Dionysus, who specifically has a cult of hysterical women with super human strength who tear apart lions and very much come across as the embodiment of feminine rage. She finds her people and her suffering wasn't for nothing.
That's why her story resonates. Medea is just done with life and goes Bad once Jason decided he's moving onto a new wife; her story is a tragedy while Ariadne's signifies resurrection which is line with Dionysus' own myth of how he was born. They both actually go through a lot before they become these madness revelers and it's triumphant and intriguing rather than sad.
That's why you shouldn't even be able to read Ariadne's journey as "that was dumb"--it's the author's fault for relying on our emotional response to the original myth WITHOUT PRESENTING THAT. Theseus should come across as her greatest love before the betrayal: not a ticket out, not just someone sought after for lust, but because Theseus convinces her that he loves her. It's practical to make their agreement just contractual without capturing the fact that HE ABANDONS HER ON AN ISOLATED ISLAND SHE'S ONLY LUCKY HAD DIONYSUS ON IT. Not even emphasizing he leaves her to die is like--how ELSE do you think it resonates so hard?? Partners will leave their partners to die in the modern world--imagine your BF broke up with you so hard they left you in the middle of the woods or YA KNOW, a deserted island!
It's not Rachel's fault for not knowing the myth, it's the author's for not emphasizing the emotional journey Ariadne goes on. It can be as short or as long as possible in the text, it doesn't matter what order it's told in--it feels emotionally incorrect for the author to frame this abandonment as anything other than completely devastating. First her dad leaves her to rot down in the labyrinth and next this dude takes advantage of her knowledge of the labyrinth and once he was done with her, she's as good as dead. He doesn't drop her off at the next Greek state HE LITERALLY ABABDONS HER TO DIE.
That's why Dionysus meeting her is like... Does she trust it, first of all? I'd think I was already dead, personally. And how much does she know of Gods when she's lived in the labyrinth for so long--I'd make Dionysus a bit mysterious cuz he just isn't a big power player and his cult is so weird, so it could be like "Sounds like a God's name but ehhhh". Then she could rip apart some lions and realize oh he's like giving me super strength and then she ends up the best at it without realizing it was a competition to bed with him and then yeah she becomes his wife--WHT NOT THAT?! She has to be a PRUDE? Not even sheltered, PRUDE?!
Another interesting fact: one of the few books that her other accounts gave 5 stars is Lore Olympus by Rachel Smyth. In Cait's interview with Liv Albert in her podcast "let's talk about myths, baby!" she not only confessed her insecurities as an author, but praised Lore Olympus for its interpretation of the myth of Hades and Persephone as a girl escaping a controlling mother to become an adult, since she identify with this version as the child of a very religious and controlling family. Of course, if you know anything about mythology, that interpretation is false and only popularized by Tumblr back in the 2010's, because all the sources agree Persephone was kidnapped and the marriage was very much against her will.
But here is the kick: in LO Persephone starts as apparently sweet naive girl that has a lot of bad things happening to her, but there is some dark spots here and there about a much more selfish, petty and racist personality under the facade. By season 3, she is full blow a**hole that the narrative insist she is a victim even if she is in her third "accidental" genocide, terrorize nymphs and satyrs (heavily coded as POC) for minor offenses, is a massive hypocrite, always mistreating her mother for opposing to her relationship with Hades for a number of good reasons, and is being constantly enabled by Hades and Hera, two other full blow narcissists.... knowing what we know now... I'm not surprised that she is such a Persephone's stan
Geez, I never knew Lore Olympus was so dark. I mean that the Persephone character was so awful
yeah, I think the "oh it wasn't as bad a love story as people think" is... true, but only in the time period of the myth. it's an awful thing to happen and people only want to retell the story because they want a beauty and the beast retelling but ~special!~ if you want an actually good explanation of the story, the OSP version is pretty good.
@@andiman44 yeah well LO is basically has fetish and kinks Persephone is forever 19 year old while Hades is in his 40s literally the same age as her mom
I used to like the series but fell out of it after finding out her age, and all the things I disliked and used to tolerate came rushing out. Glad I stopped where I did. I didn't expect it would get that much worse.
Glad I stopped reading when I did then because. holy fucking shit??
As a classics girlie who IS into Greek mythology, this sounds wack lolol. Also, in the myth you have it spot on. Thesius is the main character in the myth (because of course 🙄), and he did literally the opposite of all this. He marooned her on an island while she was sleeping and fucked off back home. Dionysis was like "oh who left a perfectly wife out here? Dibs!" And she married him which was very much an upgrade. Because Dionysis is one of 2 gods who doesn't have any myths of cheating on his wife.
Honestly struggling to think of another married god who didn't cheat on his wife.. Hephaestus? Not for a lack of trying, iirc, though now that I think about it I can't recall whether his attempted r*pe of Athena was before or after the marriage to Aphrodite
@@eldara3 Hades!
@@dandelionpuffHades did once, but learnt his lesson 😂
@@izzisart I don't recall any myths where he did. Can you let me know the name of the person he cheated with? I'd like to look it up and read it!
@@dandelionpuff Minthe. And Persephone quashed it real quick. 😂
So I have been a fan of Greek mythology since I was a kid and this book just kinda rehashes the Ariadne side of the story of Theseus and the Labyrinth. But it sounds like it doesn't actually do anything with the story, it doesn't explore the actual themes of the story or does anything interesting.
It doesn’t surprise me that yet another mediocre book by a white author got a book deal, movie deal, book box feature, etc. It’s more that she wasn’t happy with all of that and had to try to tank authors she was jealous of, some of whom were at her own imprint! That to me shows she’s aware of how bad her writing is, and instead of a) acknowledging her privilege in spite of that, or b) working to improve, she thought the only way to do that was by trying to tank her peers. And them being mostly authors of color, including one who considered her a friend?!
You call it racism but what you are actually looking at is marketing without substance. What they probably did was show they have all this attention for their story and presented it to a publisher who if its from a smaller publishing house just ran with it. It has nothing to do with racism outside of the authors unhinged racism. You also came off racist which is weird if yiu are going to have an issue with racism only be be racist also. Also many of the recent book deals of overly shit books has been due to nepotism. I believe it was lightlark that was also one of the nepotism books where the ladies father had lots of money and ties to the printing industry and got her book published wheb it was clearly bot at that level. Dont resort to racism to denounce racism, it was jot cool when she did it and its not cool when you do it either even if you think she deserves it. Tuats just means yiu are a racist with a moral code if someone can deserve racism.
@@mattiOTX umm, tell me you have not being paying attention to the broader conversation without telling me. Reverse racism isn’t a thing. The authors affected and other authors of color haven’t gotten anywhere near the same marketing push as CC, SJM, Rebecca Yarros, [insert big name white author here]. And the situation itself got overshadowed by people trying to throw one of the *victims* under the bus because she used a common Black saying, accusing *her* of being ableist (not to mention this author was also disabled). Stop calling BIPOC racist for calling out real, legit racism and read the room/touch grass/grow an empathy chip for people beyond yourself and people who look like your white privileged ass.
@@mattiOTXI’m sorry, are going to pretend white women aren’t the first chosen to be published ? How many famous poc authors do you know? I can only name a few handfuls compared to the thousands of famous white authors.
It is you who is being racist. Denying systematic discrimination and defending an extremely racist author who tried to bring down poc authors trying to make it in this industry.
@@mattiOTXwhere was the racism in the comment? Was it “mediocre white author”? If so, the previous comment meant that the the mediocre author is white, hence has certain privileges in the US that a mediocre author that is not white doesn’t have.
That is not racist, but rather an observation of a quantifiable situation. Acknowledging privileges (education, food security, access to internet, is not racist).
@@ElfInTheFlowers except that is factually not true as iron widow literally written by a non-binary Asian decent person also got a book deal which was the author's "friend". Mediocre writers come from all background and they do get book deals so it's a misleading comment to paint it as it's only white writers being published and that the majority of them are barely passable. That is not an observation, that is a cherry picking of examples to create a specific narrative that matches with the OP and your worldview and belief system.
The reason you said something racist is called bigotry of low expectations. Do you actually believe black, Hispanic/Latino, Asian people don't have access to the Internet based on their race? Do you think them poor or stupid? Why would they magically not have access to these things? On education, many people go to public schools and as much as you might not like them they all have the same standard, they are to teach everyone to a federally mandated level. Why would people of a different skin color have less education? Do you believe that they do based on their race? Do you think so little of Americans because of their race? On food security, we have something called food stamps, there are many white Americans on food stamps. I know that you have never been on food stamps because if you had you would know everyone gets the same maximum though federally a study was done that showed that white Americans tend to receive less per person then other Americans but it's because of people with your worldview that believe that based on the color of someone's skin life is magically better for them. You have a racist view of the world all in an attempt to find racism. If you want to know where actual racism is look no further than unions but the truth is people with your belief system won't turn on unions because they support your politics. So you people claim to be against racism and to spot injustices but happily turn a blind eye to those that afford you more power even when they stand against your belief system.
I can’t believe that they didn’t explain who the Minotaur was born from. Although, I don’t know why she compared her story to Dionysus’s with Zeus, and didn’t make a general ‘all gods suck’ point when Poseidon was the one who screwed everyone in that family over. (The Minotaur was conceived when Minos refused to sacrifice a prized white bull to Poseidon. In revenge, he made Minos’s wife lust after the bull.)
I think “Review Bomb Reviews” would be a fun title for this series. Or maybe “One Star Audits”?
Ohhh these are awesome suggestions! Thank you!
No problem, happy to help with ideas :)
The further I listen, this just seems like Christianity with a Greek mythology veneer (having sex out of wedlock is ok for men but as long as it's in a Moirai-fearing way)? The Moirae/Moirai in actual mythology are the Fates, responsible for dispensing fates of every mortal
Edit: the closest I can think is they do ask other goddesses (the Erinyes/Furies) to punish people who have done evil deeds, but iirc that's mainly for people who try to avert their own fate
As a fan fic writer who is writing her own original fiction, this is really helpful in reminding me what bad habits I have to avoid. Relying on the world building, characterizations, and audience investment already being established are things fic turned professional writers really need to work on. But this also shows how lax publishers are. These are issues that should be ironed out during the editing process.
It's always weird when authors chose certain myths to retell....especially when it comes to Greek Gods who are all just....awful individuals and incredibly self centered in the myths. To paint Dionysus as a the love interest when a lot of the translations of the myth have him CLAIMING HER AS HIS WIFE (as in telling her that she will be his wife, not asking) is just wild. IDK I feel the same with Persephone and Hades retellings.
Edit: wow another retelling where Hera is the worst and most cruel and evil person ever and Zeus is just a lil guy unhappily married to her, groundbreaking (sarcasm). Yeah Hera is cruel in some stories but she's also a super interesting and complex figure in mythology and deserves better than being portrayed some b*tch who just hates people. So many women looked (and look) at her with reverence and love for a reason. She's the literal goddess of marriage, women and family, and the protector of women during childbirth, why does everyone paint her as solely vindictive and cruel while the rest of the actual asshole gods get to be redeemed? Mayhaps reeks a bit of misogyny if you ask me
yeah i used to be big into hades and persephone when i was a teen but i got so burned out on the 'evil demeter' stuff (especially when it super took off on tumblr) it left a lasting bad taste in my mouth and i haven't read any since. like why is it always the ~nagging evil woman who becomes a scapegoat to do image control. (ETA: especially as it's image control for historical bad dudes rather than trying to flesh out and/or engage with the male character's issues, just 'look over there! wommenz evil! you like hating wommenz right? he never did a dang thing wrong or for that matter had a lick of personality.')
like just treat the myths as political or religious propaganda, or treat the gods as tempestuous otherworldly figures without human morality and mentality, or...something more interesting than just making flat characters positioned in an ill-fitting frame of black and white morality.
to be fair hera was ableist as hell for what she did to hephaestus (so i hate her), but tbh i'd be pretty pissed if my husband was blatantly cheating on me whenever the opportunity arised and had to interact with the children of said affairs
Right? Like the primary reason Hera makes trouble for so many mortals or demi-gods is that Zeus is the most unfaithful husband ever and basically The Worst. Now, does she punish the wrong people in those events? Frequently, but Greek gods were told in the image of the society that worshiped them, which mean some patriarchal power structures, so maybe she couldn't punish Zeus as much as preferred in-story.
@@wooogie672oh agreed! She’s not an innocent figure by any means at all, but she definitely has complexities that are always shoved to the side in order to scapegoat her! It’s the way that every other god gets a rebrand but Hera will forever ONLY be shown as the shrill and vindictive wife
Ugh yeah. How *dare* the goddess of marriage and fidelity be angry that her husband goes through women like other men go through undies??? And yes, her taking her anger out at his kids is shitty, but it's understandable (not justifiable), considering she literally *cannot* do anything about her husband. Gods know she tried to make him pull his head out of his ass and be a better ruler&husband.
Frankly though, it's difficult to take the misogyny out of greek myth, because then there'd barely be anything left. Every second story is basically that, even nearly all-powerful goddesses are raped/kidnapped, women aren't considered people but objects to be used/fought over, and in a lot of cases they just exist for the sole purpose of motivating the male subject of the myth to go on his adventure so he can fuck her later. Whether she wants it or not.
Those text messages suddenly make so much sense. They were in her exact voice of writing. She writes like I did in 7th grade...she got a book deal?
I will not have you insult yourself by comparing your 7th grade writing to hers. The difference is you were a CHILD learning the ins and outs of writing. She is a freaking adult whose editor definitely slept on the job.
This review reminded me of a reylo hades/persephone retelling on A03 that DID manage to mesh myths and a sci/fi dystopian elements in a really interesting engaging way, it’s still not finished but it left such an impact that I instantly thought of it during this review. Going to finish this video and try to find it again. Which I think is possibly the most ironic form of justice I could inflict on this author (should she ever read this, chances are low) because not only could she not pique my interest as an original piece of work but she didn’t even make an impact in the reylo fandom. Failed on all fronts, damn.
Please drop the name when you find it 👀 I'm not a Reylo or SW fan but I love it when fanfic authors do interesting things
Can you lemme know what the name is 💀
Commenting bcuz I also want to know the title!!
same, no clue about Star Wars but I love creative fanfics
Oooh I’d like the name too.
The fact that this book had a spot in the Illumicrate subscription lineup for 2024 is really concerning. I’m all for supporting new authors, but good grief, this writing just sounds terrible.
I know it's like any book that checks enough boxes will be put in the forefront
As someone who has had an Illumicrate subscription for about 10 months now, whilst some of the months during that time have been very good, some of them are complete duds. One book for one of the months was a poory written YA fantasy set in a land based on a mix of China and Korea. There is literally a part in which a band that is blatantly just a BTS insert turn out to be part of a magical underground railroad helping to free mages and they host concerts as a distraction for the escapes. I was losing my mind reading it thinking how did this BTS wattpad fanfic not only get published but get picked for one of the most popular book subscription boxes????
I'm going to be almost as much of an a-hole as Cait was to the other authors. Okay maybe not, that's a lot of a-hole to aim for for.
HOW? How did she get an agent and a book deal with this? The prose reminds me of a creative writing prompt outline for high school sophomores on mythology. This isn't even a decent first draft. Jesus, HOW?
she had so much more than this too. an illumicrate deal, a TWO book deal, a movie deal. she literally had her whole life set for her and it still wasn't enough
Publishing values marketability of the pitch over good prose.
Unfortunately this isn’t uncommon though. With the rise in sales of fan fiction to published books I feel like book quality is going down as well (not a diss on fan fiction just to say the standards are lower). There are so many great modern books but also shockingly bad ones :/
@@lustforlimerence Movie deals mean nothing it's often done when a book is a debut to get the rights cheap but rarely actually goes through
@@Toribell1928 no one ever adapts the good fanfiction 😒
"Magical queer murder mystery at sea" "Idont need to say anything else, I already sold you on this"
Yes yes you did
Thanks for the summaries of the affected author's books. Now i have new books to add to my list. Plus just a great way to boost them that I hadden't seen done as well elsewhere
I’m so glad the summaries were helpful! I hope everyone goes and adds them on goodreads
Though I try not to get into the habit of policing people’s language or telling people how to refer to themselves, I really wish you wouldn’t call yourself stupid. “Uninformed” about certain things yes, but stupid, not at all. Loved the video.
Yeahhh I know you’re right. I do need to stop doing that.
As a Greek mythology person myself, this book would have been agonizing for me. There are a ton of inaccuracies, like Zeus “always choosing his wife” when he was a MASSIVE fuckboy in ALL of the myths. Like, Dionysus is his bastard son that he sewed into his own leg so he could continue to develop after Hera manipulated a situation where Zeus exterminated his mother-it’s a WHOLE thing.
Damn... I felt the bad writting vibes since her fake convo and now that its confirmed... 💀. Meh, this really was not really a loss
I've seen so may authors nuke their careers from orbit in ways similar to this for years now. Cait's behavior isn't that odd unfortunately. 😮💨 Also, *This book reeks of Christian Purity Culture.*
Also, Also, as a practicing Pagan. Dionysus would approve of the wine ✨️🍇🍷✨️
He would be SO pleased with the wine lol
i am never ever going to be over its always sunny in olympus
"this author was a Reylo fanfiction writer"
Yeah that tracks.
27:07 Not stupid! Cult, in the context of the ancient world, does have a slightly different meaning than it does nowadays :) It simply refers to a group of people and a bunch of rites dedicated to the worship of a specific dieity. It took a negative connotation in modern days because 1) it was associated with paganism; 2) it started to specifically refer to sects.
In french we still tend to make the distinction between sects and cults, but the influence of english has begun to make this nuance disappear (which I think is a shame but whatev, languages evolve!)
i am not surprised goodreads has been trying to stale review bombing this book by deleting reviews, since they did the same with leaving isn't the hardest thing, which was also written by a problematic author. and as the author of cinderella is dead said, i am confused as to what it takes for them to step in and stale review bombing for some books but not for others.
also, don't worry, the way you initially pronounced Dionysus, wasn't that far off from the way we Greeks do. Same with king Minoas' name.
^Omg what a relief ♥️
Can't believe this author went like "Dionysus can sleep with his wife in a woman form but maybe we should cut the Zeus thigh mpreg part of his story. Let's not get too wild with the gender fuckery here."
I don't have any Greek myth retellings to recommend, but every time mythology comes up, i do have to recommend the Táin bó Cúailgne, an Ulster Cycle epic reconstructed from medieval manuscripts. It's sometimes described as the "Irish Iliad" but i think that's unfair because i like it more than the Iliad. Lara O'Brien here on youtube has a series where she reads the Joseph Dunn english translation, explains what the flowery thee-and-thou language means, and annotates it with her own expertise on the historical, cultural, and religious context the intended audience was expected to have when it was written down back in like the 13th century or whenever.
Weird that she didn’t mention why Minos hates the Athenians. I had to look it up since it’s been a long time since I’ve read greek myths, but Minos’ first son Androgos was killed by Athenians. I agree that she is using her knowledge of greek myth for character and world building shortcuts in a manner similar to fanfic authors, but most fanfic authors would have mentioned something important like that even if they are almost certain that everyone reading knows (doubly so in an AU, which this kind of is, since details are inevitably changed in AUs) Not fanfic but a similar example is how almost everyone knows Batman’s parents were killed, but a lot of comics and movies are still going to mention it at some point because it’s integral to his character and motivations and would feel unnatural to leave unsaid when it becomes relevant, and most fanfic authors will do the same with whatever Important Character Moment (TM) the blorbo(s) they’re writing about went through. So in the same way it feels unnatural to not explicitly mention Androgos’ death by Athenian hands since it’s integral to Minos’ character and the author (and editors) should really have expected the average reader to only have a passing familiarity with Minos and Ariadne. It would have been smart to make the novel more accessible and possibly gotten more people interested in the original story.
Also, it’s weird to me that (if I understood this correctly) Hera (the goddess of marriage who is perpetually frustrated by her husband’s cheating and wants a monogamous marriage) is the villain but Ariadne… demands a monogamous marriage when her partner is the god of sucking and f*cking. It feels weirdly dissonant in a way I’m having trouble putting to words. I get that Hera hates Zeus’s illegitimate kids, but I feel like maybe Poseidon would’ve made more sense as a villain in this story since he more or less made the minotaur so it could have given them a common enemy. Like maybe he hates Ariadne bc of her father’s disrespect to him and has some reason to keep dionysus out of olympus; Hera could have even been used as a red herring. It might not have been as accurate to Dionysus’s myths but neither is the minotaur turning human again or all the purity culture stuff so *shrug*.
Oh yeah, and Poseidon could literally be trying to frame Hera because that would cause a rift between the ruling couple in Olympus. Maybe this is his play towards a coup or something? Idk. Or maybe he’s just being super petty. Poseidon’s gonna Poseidon. That he would be a fun villain if done right.
obvs this is a small thing in the grand scheme of things but the author comparing this to gideon the ninth actually enrages me lmao. tamsyn muir Nails the themes in her work. everything in the locked tomb contributes thematically to the overarching tone of the world, so an author who can’t even communicate themes that already exist within the poorly referenced source material should keep gideon the ninth out of her mouth
Hearing "Let me go read some Hannibal fanfic" was terribly startling to me, who was listening to this video in the background while reading Hannibal fanfic...
the fact that this almost got published makes me feel better about my writing skills. and I just write as a hobby.
To address things you were mentioning and asking about, as someone who looks into and researches mythology and history, as well as the sociological aspect of the time period (I’m far from an expert, but I can talk a fair amount about the subject.)
A decent of people today who do follow a sort of revitalized Hellenistic religion (Worshipping the Greek gods) still carry a lot of misconceptions and ideas about god worship from Christianity over to their polytheist worship of the pantheon. There’s not really a concept of false gods, especially since a decent amount of speculated origins of Greek gods come from other places in the ancient world. Worship wasn’t generally focused on a singular deity in your life. They presided over different domains, and the gods had many titles and aspects. Some regions of Ancient Greece of course had favored a particular god, but the others weren’t ignored. And when temples weren’t available, many rural areas have prayed to the Nymphs who presided on that terrain in lieu of temple access. If you were to be, say, sick, carrying an illness. You may pray to Apollo, who had healing aspects. You may pray to Hera meanwhile for a successful and long lasting marriage, or you may pray to Artemis for being allowed to hunt, or to aid in childbirth (as Artemis did act as a midwife for her brother) generally, you would go to whatever god was in control of that particular concept, and call upon them. The word cult also carries a negative connotation today that it didn’t in ancient times. Cults were devoted to a singular god or group of gods and generally were miniature secret societies. That said there doesn’t seem to historically be any hostility between gods worshipped and having differing focuses.the gods were stewards of all aspects of the natural world, and thus were all equally important
Greek Mythology girlie her.This is not a retelling. At best it's a greek mythology fanfic. Uses elements from disparate stories badly.
It really does feel like myth retellings at this point are treated as an acceptable, copyright allowable way of publishing fanfic. All the strengths and pitfalls of fanfic are there, without adjusting for the different context and expectations that come with being a standalone purchasable novel. There are absolutely ways to do retellings right, but using the lose framework of the myth as an excuse to be low effort ain't it.
You can rename the series something short like "Review Bombed" lol
despite the author being a bad person I was honestly still a little bit curious/hopeful? as to how this book would turn out, as I’m a Greek guy who absolutely loves Greek mythos - including the stories of Ariadne, Asterius, Theseus, and Dionysus…but needless to say so far I just feel…kinda confused
As a Greek girlie I was also hopeful, believing we were going to enter this new era of worthy Greek mythology retellings by English authors. But naaaah 😭
Greek Mythology in a sci-fi setting sounded fun. But even as someone who read a LOT of myths, this book was still confusing
TLDR if you know a little bit about Greek mythology the story you're describing makes a little more sense in some ways but is more baffling in other ways.
The author comes from a fanfiction background, so cutting their teeth with a story with a Greek myth backdrop isn't a bad plan. Ideally though you still need to write the story in a way where no prior knowledge is required, not just because some people don't know that much about Greek myths can follow along but because there isn't a strict canon the way there is for star wars. Greek myths were oral tradition that were then written down at some point, different versions at different times in different places. The minotaur myth for example has sacrifices being sent every 1, 7, or 9 years. It's a minor difference in that case maybe but the author is inviting confusion if they are relying on every reader being familiar with the exact same versions of these stories.
I'm not Greek antiquity expert (enjoy a myth or two here and there) but my recollection was that directly slaying one's own kin was something that would result divine punishment. HOWEVER there were ways around that which were considered acceptable mostly the practice of Exposure. Exposure was when a family would basically just abandon their kids in the wilds and this isn't considered murder technically because they can be saved by passing strangers or divine intervention. I guess the most famous example of this is probably Oedipus where Laius (Oedipus's dad) can cripple Oedipus, but can't directly kill him. Even when Laius delegates the execution he can't have the servant bash Oedipus's brains in, he has to be left for the wolves on the side of a mountain. So, for someone like me with a passing familiarity with this stuff I can make guesses as to why it's inconvenient to kill Ariadne directly but still these ideas need to be communicated in the story directly.
Minos wants to kill Ariadne but doesn't for some reason, and also the Minotaur is Ariadne's brother. I thought what was being set up was that Minos was keeping her around in case he needed to engineer the death of the Minotaur if it escapes the Labyrinth. Like, Minos can't kill the Minotaur because it's too strong, and Minos also can't kill Ariadne because gods hate a kinslayer, but Ariadne and the Minotaur are kin so if the Minotaur slays Ariadne then the Minotaur gets divinely smote. But all that assumes that gods punish kinslaying in the context of this particular book and it seems like Ariadne would be aware of it if they did, and would list it as the primary reason her dad can't kill her.
Honestly though the more we get in to it, and particularly by the quote "my status as heir affords me a small amount of protection", it all just confuses me and makes me uncertain as to what's actually keeping Ariadne alive. It's true that in royal politics killing your heir is generally pretty extreme but "murdering me out of hand would raise questions in the wider galaxy" is not what I would have picked as a top reason. Like Minos openly sacrifices children and has banned most of the wider pantheon he does NOT seem like a man concerned with his reputation. If there's no divine edict against kinslaying then I would have gone with something like "he won't kill his heir until he has a spare" - there's no point in killing her until he has a male backup ready to go.
Whats up with Religion in this book? So, iirc the Moirai are either 3 separate goddesses or a trinity goddess with 3 aspects. They govern fate, when you die, that kind of thing. Sometimes even other gods can't defy them, sometimes the death they plan for someone is thwarted, sometimes Zeus can bid them to do some task. I've never heard of the Moirai being particularly antagonistic with or jealous of the rest of the pantheon. If anything I remember them as The Adults In The Room, too concerned with the important job they're doing to engage in the petty squabbles that consume the immortal lives of most of the rest of the greek pantheon. They're an odd choice for a cult that demands exclusive worship. Also I'm struggling to recall an incident where they were particularly concerned with lust or chastity. If you made me pick a god who'd have these weird ideas about purity it'd be Hephaestus (gets cheated on a lot, would be easy to depict him as an embittered guy obsessed with virginity) or Hera (is married to Zeus and thus thinks relationships should be a joyless slog).
What remains of the Myths in this mythology retelling? I mean, I haven't read the book maybe I shouldn't be judging it too much second hand but the impression is that Ariadne goes on about how repressive and sex negative her cult is. The point of this seems to be so we can have a pretty stock standard "sheltered girl meets bad boy" arc and I like that when it's done well but it seems like the least interesting thing we can do here. The original myth of the minotaur is that in order to punish King Minos for a pretty minor slight a god makes Minos's wife Pasiphae fall in love with a bull and the result of the relations between Pasiphae and said bull is the Minotaur. Like, I'm not saying I'm a genius writer or anything but if you're doing a retelling of this myth then any part of that seems like a very compelling reason for Ariadne to be disillusioned with the gods, and to have real genuine doubts about whether it's possible for a mortal to be in a relationship with one.
If you imagine someone who really had that happen to their family, who grew up thinking about how severe the punishment was compared to the slight, how Pasiphae's mind and free will were warped, how the Minotaur was cursed with an unnatural body and terrible appetites, how it was Minos who transgressed but it was the people in his vicinity were cursed, these are all things I'd expect the story to make a big deal of more then old timey people being super chaste. It would even lead to pretty intense drama for Ariadne's relationship with Dionysus if she's questioning whether she wants him for normal reasons or is it because he's a god and can MAKE people want him, if she has to wonder whether saying no is an option when the consequences of offending a god are so dire. Instead, the author does decide to touch a little bit on the power imbalance but only in the context that Dionysus could retract his favor and stop protecting Ariadne from other sources of danger, never to seriously consider that Dionysus could BE one of those sources of danger. Add in to that you could have Theseus string her along for more time so Dionysus isn't her first relationship and the betrayal does more harm to her psyche and now we've got some goddamn drama.
As a greek mythology fan and as someone who doesn't always enjoy their retellings (but can still recognize when one is well done), all I can say that this is the laziest way to go about it. Rellings are supposed to bring a new depth or perspective to the original myth (in my opinion), and the fact that she couldn't even bother to change the names of the characters or the cities/planets or whatever, blows my mind. Like, what is the whole point of this book? Greek myths in space? And the fanfiction-y way of the prose is insufferable, but on point with what she's doing: a Greek myth fanfiction, because you can't call this a retelling. The only good thing about the book is the cover.
I know the Ariadne myth and I’m confused by this book.
27:56 Thanatos is the Greek version of the Grim Reaper. He's nasty but can be outwitted. Sisyphus managed to trick him into chaining himself to a rock, and no one died on earth until he was unchained again. This is how Sisyphus ended up in Tartarus rolling a rock uphill forever.
27:51 Thanatos was just a personnification of death, just like the Moirai are of destiny. It's weird how in the passage right before there seems to be a weird lore dump "some gods were always there, others not" when it's sort of an obvious thing for ppl that know greek mythos a lot (which seem to be the target audience), and then Thanatos just sorta gets name dropped
This is my exact issue with Greek mythology retelling cause I read the mythological books but I feel like I read way different books from everyone else cause I remember nothing!
Series Title suggestion: 'One Star or too far?'
Hey, I'm not a person recovering or struggling with alcoholism/addiction but I wanted to thank you for the cw nonetheless bc my last memory of my father (who *did* struggle with these things and passed away two and a half months later) was him calling me on Christmas Day (also his birthday) and being so incoherent that I had to hang up for him. This time of year is hard for me because of this, so thanks for the cw. I was able to put off my viewing of this and come back later in a better headspace. ❤
Hey! I’m happy to do it. I have those same memories of my father who was an alcoholic. He’s not passed away, but he and I are now estranged. Solidarity. Thank you for being here. ♥️
2023 has been an interesting year for books. In January we had an author who came back from the dead. And in December we had an author who commented professional unaliving.
On a plus side, the books she targeted look really interesting. Adding them to my reading list.
Not only Cait Corrain was an absolute racist, she has no knowledge of Greek mythology and is disrespectful of it.
I'm sorry but...
Madeline Miller / Rick Riordan > Cait Corrain
EDIT: Had to omit "Borderline" there bc connotations.
English is not my first language. I am French.
(Non seulement Cait Corrain était une raciste, mais elle n'a aucune connaissance de la mythologie grecque et elle ne la respecte pas.)
I would omit the borderline, honestly. Just because she doesn't admit she did what she did the way she did because of ingrained racism doesn't mean she's not still racist.
She fully knew it was racism, she just refused to admit to that in her apology. When she was sending fake DMs to herself she admitted it was racist.
She literally pulled a Sarah Underwood, it seems. I wonder how she thought she'd get away with this when most of the people that would be gravitating towards her books are knowledgeable in ancient Greek mythology/history.
@@TiffWaffles As I understood it, Underwood did extensive research on the specific portion of the Odyssey her book is inspired by, including reading multiple translations of it, she just hasn't read the ENTIRE Odyssey front to back. I haven't read my copy of LWSttS yet though, is it as bad as this one?
Borderline? She just was lol, no hate on you.
Trying to think of alternatives to “did it deserve one star” and I can only make it worse
“One Star Wronged?” is fun to say out loud tho
So the ARC of this book just appeared on your account like that U2 album on iTunes!
YES
The whole time I was watching this review, I had the song "the Cult of Dionysus," by the Orion Experience stuck in my head. I can safely say that song has a way better Ariadne and Dionysus storyline than this book.
Also, I'm actually glad the apparently racist writer is also bad at writing. Makes the whole situation better to me, honestly.
A good retelling shouldn’t require knowledge with the preexisting story. For those who know the original tale the pleasure will be heightened by moments of recognition and clever reinterpretation of the original.
I feel so bad for the artist, but the cover is absolutely GORGEOUS!!! I hope they get a ton of commissions!