There is a lot of non-consensual sex between mortals and gods in this book actually, it's as if the Game of Thrones writers worked on it, and I have to admit that this plays into a larger complaint I have about Greek mythology reinterpretations in general. Carosella flat out says in her notes that she could not understand how someone would willingly do bestiality so she makes it a rape which honestly sounded even harder to pull off to me. Sometimes she is born from both of her human parents and sometimes she is born from the union of her mother Leda and the god Zeus as a swan, sometimes out of an egg but the impression I always had was that this was a happy union. Much less likable was the subject of Helen's birth which is a weird one even in the stories.
But alas, like Nobody's Princess/ Nobody's Prize this story stops just short of the Trojan War and, considering that is what Helen is most associated with, it feels like a cop-out to actively avoid that event.
I had high hopes however when Carosella started off her book by mentioning how The Trojan War cycle is really the downfall of what is called "The Age of Heroes" and I was hoping that maybe this meant Helen would have an active role in that and was interested to see how you could write a character who wasn't necessarily a villain but was part of the downfall of her own civilization. Helen is a hard character to make into a main character, the defining aspect of her across myths is that she left her home either willingly (and helped bring about the downfall of the Greeks, a seductive villainous) or that she was taken away and had to be rescued (a captive damsel) and both of those are rather passé ideas. Many men around her still want to be with her despite those wars and they all believe that they have the power to defy fate and to make her love them.Īnd this has ended up being yet another retelling of Helen of Sparta/Troy that I disliked which is unexpected but frustrating. More beautiful than any other woman she has a hard time contextualizing this being so isolated from everyone else, both because of her status and her nightmares of the wars that will follow her. Long before Helen went to Troy she was from Sparta and was born to be it's next queen.
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