Jennifer Derrick

Ah being the Death Fate is HARD y'all. Like the most boring, tedious, repetitive job available. And Greek Gods are jerks.

Pro: I pretty much agreed with everything Sophie (Atropos) said about life, death and acceptance thereof. We would prolly be good friends.

Con: I kind of wanted to stab Alex several times, for various reasons mostly involving him NOT GETTING IT. Also part of a series! Dammit.

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This is the second book in a year I've read featuring the Three Fates wherein the youngest (Atropos, she of the Death Fate) ends up feeling empathy and/or affection for a mortal almost bringing doom upon the world. Look, Death can't play favorites - I don't care what region of the world you come from that's true. It never ends well. As seen in [b:The Shadow Behind the Stars|22065512|The Shadow Behind the Stars|Rebecca Hahn|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1424102274s/22065512.jpg|41396685], things go really wrong really quickly when Death plays favorites.

Sophie is at pains to tell us what some of those bad things are plus, as if that wasn't enough, Zeus also tells us, Thanatos is off in the wings threatening all those bad things and hell even Alex recognizes how bad it could get. Death is, as Sophie spends a good chunk of the first 15% of the book explaining, a necessary part of life and is inevitable. Do some people not deserve how they die? Sure. Do some deaths suck more than others? Oh most definitely. Still. Its a thing. Accept it.

And this review took an awfully dark turn...

On a brighter note I liked how Sophie and her sisters Chloe and Lacey (Clotho and Lachesis) acted liked sisters. They poked each other, they bugged each other, they got mad and did petty things. Even after three thousand years I find that endearing. I found fun the ways Derrick played with names (the Fates were also known as the Moirai and their last name is Moiraine for instance). I may have slightly cheered when Sophie astutely noted how lazy and disconnected her fellow Gods were becoming during one particularly (not) fun visit to Olympus.

In general I liked Sophie. I call foul on her sudden interest in Alex, but I came to the conclusion by the end it was part interest, part pity over how sad his life was and partly because he was basically a Dead Man Walking. He was her job personified in a lot of ways. And - spoilers sweetie - I liked that Derrick killed him off. I suppose since this is a series, and he's in the Underworld waiting for Sophie, he could pop back up again, but I'm cool with him not returning to the living.

I wasn't much a fan of Alex to be honest. He seemed a bit too...perfectly suited to Sophie. Sophie is questioning the point of everything and her family is pushing her to be more outgoing...in enters Alex in her life with a persistence that would make me punch a guy and a tragic past Sophie is entangled in (to be truthful if death is involved she'd be caught up in that tragic past so this isn't that big a deal). He put up with her awkward socialness, brought her to an old ruin of a cemetery as their first date, and just seems to know how to act with her when even her family has issues. Her family that has known her for three thousand (ish) years.

Its not all giggles and sunshine of course - Ares is skulking around and he misses Sophie quite a bit (they dated for a long while, but then he broke her heart in a thousand pieces to begin dating Aphrodite) but he is genuinely (with good reason) worried about Sophie's actions. You can hear Thanatos all but cackling with glee after he tells Sophie there's a prophecy about her downfall and not ten pages later she's showing above regular interest in a mortal that could lead to, you guessed it, her downfall as a Fate. With Sophie's downfall the one taking over (Thanatos' sister Ker) will more or less make humanity suffer in horrible ways to feed the appetites of thousands of bloodthirsty monsters.

No pressure to do the right thing or anything.

Going in I had no idea this would be part of a series (I'm actually really bad at remembering to look this up), so it was a bit frustrating to get to the end and not have the full story. It sounds like Sophie is going on a Heroic Quest, which I am all for to be honest, and if Derrick's pinterest board of inspiration for Book 2 is anything to go by, Sophie is going to have a hell of a Quest to complete. Which again, bring on the questing! I'm even kind of digging her sidekick Ares, since when he's not ignoring her personal need for him to not act so close with her he's fun and does seem to have her better interests at heart.

All for all, I'm looking forward to the second book and seeing where this leads.
… (plus d'informations)

Simplistic nonsense

Magic allows a wizard to change himself into a bird large enough for a person to ride on but is ineffective at fighting a war? MC finds a woman with a talent with books and he tries to assign her to the kitchen because he doesn’t know what to do with her. Paragraphs spent describing a magical mail system because it’s the details that make it magic? Bad Latin used as a magic system. Bad guys are bad and want bad things because...

The writing is clear and well crafted. The characters are weak and uninspiring. And the world is only vaguely coherent.

...and it looks like my review will be the first one. Ouch.

It really is well written. Sentences are clear, no misspellings, paragraphs are coherent. It just doesn’t inspire me to keep reading.… (plus d'informations)

Simplistic nonsense

Magic allows a wizard to change himself into a bird large enough for a person to ride on but is ineffective at fighting a war? MC finds a woman with a talent with books and he tries to assign her to the kitchen because he doesn’t know what to do with her. Paragraphs spent describing a magical mail system because it’s the details that make it magic? Bad Latin used as a magic system. Bad guys are bad and want bad things because...

The writing is clear and well crafted. The characters are weak and uninspiring. And the world is only vaguely coherent.

...and it looks like my review will be the first one. Ouch.

It really is well written. Sentences are clear, no misspellings, paragraphs are coherent. It just doesn’t inspire me to keep reading.… (plus d'informations)