Rating: 4 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel
Psyche lives in a world of women. Her mother’s love is endless and yet she is helpless against her husband, enduring the blows and anger turned her way as silently and gracefully as she endures the heat of the summer sun or the chill of winter. Psyche’s sisters, clever and proud Iantha and graceful, beautiful Coronis, are a pair unto themselves, whose closeness both welcomes their sister at one moment, then shuts her away from them the next. But Psyche loves them with her whole heart, sees beauty even in their cruelty and their indifference, chases after them for the joy of their laughter, clings to them for comfort when the night is too dark.
As Psyche grows, so too does her reputation. Psyche is beautiful and young, ready to be married. Men come from all over to stare at her, turning her into a spectacle. Unable to touch her, the men assault the female slaves; her father’s money is slipping away, as he must feed these guests who offer nothing but refuse to leave, wanting nothing more than to stare and stare and stare at Psyche. They sing of her, write poems about her, and, most dangerously of all, name her more beautiful than Aphrodite.
Aphrodite is a jealous goddess and demands that Eros, her daughter, goddess of desire and passion, curse Psyche to love and wed a monster. Eros, who delights in mischief, who adores her mother, wings her way to the mortal world … only to fall in love with Psyche herself.
This is a retelling of the myth of Psyche and Eros, and it’s quite a book. First and foremost, before even talking about the characters, the lovely romance, and the bonds of sisterhood and daughterhood, I have to talk about the writing, because it’s both the thing that drew me into the story and also the thing that, at times, made the book almost unreadable. The author has a lovely, lyrical, and lush way of writing that — when it works — really works. Psyche’s musings on her mother’s life, on the beauty of her sisters, and the love she feels for them, are just glorious, evocative, and poetic.
The pages where Psyche is living under her father’s roof, constrained by the events surrounding her, are a five-star read on their own. Then the story moves to her marriage to Eros in a hidden palace and the tone changes. The writing becomes sentence after sentence (sometimes a page of one sentence) of mood and style and vibe, and I struggled to stay invested and I honestly struggled to read. My eyes would just glaze over as Psyche used words that felt they had no purpose, putting feelings together with no end point, and when it did end, it did so with no conclusion. It’s beautiful, yes; it’s like eating the most wondrous dessert of only one flavor of sweetness and no variation. No texture, no balance, nothing to drink to cleanse the palette so you can enjoy the next bite … it was overwhelming and, for me, it was exhausting to read. The author knows what they’re doing; they can write and write well, but the style soon became the star of the show rather than the story, and that just isn’t to my taste.
The story though … the story is so good. Psyche has been raised all her life to be passive. To obey her father, her mother, her gods, to do as she is told and prepare to be married to a man her father will choose for her. She follows her sisters, listens to their dreams and hopes, only to see them married to men they did not want, forced to separate to new homes and new lives because of Psyche. She finds strength in her mother who, like Psyche, like so many women, has been limited and weakened by the cage around her of duty, obedience, and acceptance. She is helpless to save her daughters, helpless to do anything but mourn when they are taken away from her.
There are many thoughts on sisterhood, on womanhood, and what life is when one has the ability to choose, and when one doesn’t. Like Psyche, Eros loves her mother, is devoted to her, and — like Psyche — Eros is limited by the power women are allowed to have. For all that Aphrodite is a goddess, she bows her head before Zeus; for all that Eros amuses him as she shoots arrows of desire, partnering an old woman and a young man, a beggar and a prince, she must obey his tempers and his tantrums. With Psyche, in the dark of a room where no light enters, Eros is free to be herself. Wholly herself. To speak, sing, or shift … because Eros, formed in Aphrodite with no father, has a body that shifts between woman and man. She can be fully a woman, or fully a man, or the shape she most prefers, a mixture of both. To have Psyche, Eros must hide them both from her mother, and yet, as the story goes, the pair are discovered.
The how and the why make perfect sense. The story comes together so well and so seamlessly that it’s a joy to read. The discussions of motherhood, sisterhood, and the shared bond of being women in a world where they are seen as lesser, as property, are thoughtful and — through Psyche’s eyes — both sad and sympathetic. When the writing doesn’t get in the way. I enjoyed Psyche as a character, and her romance with Eros was so well done. Her relationship with her sisters and mother were so good, and even the scenes with Eros and Aphrodite. But I just can’t, personally, get entirely past the middle section and the writing. The style was overwhelming and I had to take breaks just to give my mind a chance to reset so that I could come back to it refreshed.
This won’t be a book for everyone, and it’s one where I strongly suggest you try a sample — or pick it up from the library — so that you can judge for yourself if the writing style is going to work for you.
