Becca Reviews: Girl, Goddess, Queen by Bea Fitzgerald

I was lucky enough to take part in a virtual book club call with the author and hearing about her writing process and thoughts certainly made me enjoy this story more.

Interestingly Bea noted she loved the bright pink cover because it ensured the text stayed feeling YA and 'annoyance to lovers', as she referred to it. Her aim was for the story to be shelved as a YA Fantasy Romance and not as another Greek Mythology retelling (specifically in the year of Greek retellings!).

I wasn't enamoured with the YA dialogue but that's a me problem for reading a YA book so whatever. Again, I found the 'will they, won't they' frustrating with Hades and Persephone, particularly as we know they will. But, also my fault for reading this kind of book! I think since I've been reading the ACOTAR series my idea of YA has been skewed as it was originally written as YA but truly is more of a Adult Romantasy.

The entirety of the plot boils down to 'enemies to lovers', or 'annoyance to lovers'. I found this very repetitive and frustrating. I enjoyed the surprising twist of Hades, god of the underworld, actually being a big softy but once we'd established that I felt like it was really rung out as a concept, at which point he became a bit dull, with no dimension. The scenes of them pretending to be a couple made me cringe and then I felt just as confused as they did about whether they were pretending to fancy each other or not - I guess that was the point, this element was written well. What was confusing was only reading from Kore's point of view, I've seen other reviewers mention that this plot would have benefitted from a dual perspective and I agree. If this was the case we would have witnessed both character's turmoil and we would have been the ones in the know.

I enjoyed the world building and the insight into the Greek gods, particularly the nymphs, and Styx. I also loved the element of Kore (Persephone) creating different flowers and also overhauling the underworld to make it's set up more streamline - sounds like me finding a draw that needs organising.

Beyond that I feel like I don't have much to say. Perhaps my expectations were too high, after reading a few Greek retellings I was excited to read one that centred around a female protagonist. The main fault for me was the length of the book, it felt as though it had been padded out to reach a word count, however, this could come back to the YA dialogue, perhaps that is what the audience typically enjoys.

I will continue to read Greek retellings but not YA versions. If you're a YA lover and want an in to Greek retellings this is for you!

Read: 05/09/2024

Published: 24/09/2024

ISBN: 9780241627907

Price: £13.99 (GBP)