This is rounded up from a 2.5, giving grace to a fellow indie author. This book should have been a slam dunk for me— a modern reconstruction of an ancient mystery religion, in which every character bears a name out of myth. I expected some depth and history and mysticism, maybe an alternate reality in which paganism is universally accepted and the people are all conversant in mythic tropes. I fully expected to wallow luxuriously in it.
I'll start with what worked. The names of the characters, the basic idea of starting up a new/old religion, a familiarity with herbs and potions, the restless hunger for something more among young folks finding their feet in the world, the honesty about one's internal reactions to the people in our lives and our conversations with them.
Some of the things that charmed me at first grew old very quickly, the most jarring being the cultural references. At first it was fun and gives the 'in-crowd' camaraderie that shared references bring, but there were so many and they went on for so long that these were the first passages I began to skim.
Another was the head-hopping. Because the book is told so largely from the characters' thoughts, there's no way out of head-hopping. But to do it well (and it can be done well, although it rarely is), there has to be clean delineations between the various heads into which we're hopping, and it has to be judicious. There were also abrupt changes of scene within chapters with no break or any indication they were coming.
There's no doubt that our inner critic can be brutal even to those we love. But all of the characters in this book are just horrid to best friends and sworn enemies alike. The only character I ended up liking was Cassie, and that's probably because I was never privy to any petty, mean-spirited, unpleasant inner monologues as I was from other characters.
The tactic of using everyone's inner dialogue allows the author to almost exclusively Tell with very little Showing. This wears thin very quickly.
The mythic names trope doesn't work when very few of the characters are at all familiar with myths, or paganism in any form.
I myself do not subscribe to the current fashion of eliminating all adverbs. Love me some adverbs. But there are very few verbs in this tale that are not appended by adverbs, some of them awkward (puzzledly, embarrassedly.) They need to get pared way down in the editing process.
I hoped that by the end of the book, Cybele's frivolous basis for starting her religion would morph into something deeper and more meaningful. But there was really no character development at all. Drugging 'followers' without their knowledge, cozying up to one's bestie's enemy, spying on one's bestie, and finally uncovering a death plot and NOT reporting it, and instead using dangerous drugs to 'save' those involved in the suicide pact did not endear the MC to me. I disliked her far more by the end of the book than when it started.
I'm sorry this review isn't more full of joy. I genuinely wanted to love this tale. But I rely on honest reviews when selecting my reads and I did not enjoy this book. I'm giving it 3 stars because I think the author shows promise and I hope for better things to come from her.
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