“Power does not transform you, he’d said. It only reveals you.” – 3/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: city lights, mythology, training sessions, good friendships, Greek Gods and hunters.

From the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Darkest Minds comes a sweepingly ambitious, high-octane tale of power, destiny, love and redemption.

Every seven years, the Agon begins. As punishment for a past rebellion, nine Greek gods are forced to walk the earth as mortals, hunted by the descendants of ancient bloodlines, all eager to kill a god and seize their divine power and immortality.
Long ago, Lore Perseous fled that brutal world in the wake of her family’s sadistic murder by a rival line, turning her back on the hunt’s promises of eternal glory. For years she’s pushed away any thought of revenge against the man–now a god–responsible for their deaths.

Yet as the next hunt dawns over New York City, two participants seek out her help: Castor, a childhood friend of Lore believed long dead, and a gravely wounded Athena, among the last of the original gods.

The goddess offers an alliance against their mutual enemy and, at last, a way for Lore to leave the Agon behind forever. But Lore’s decision to bind her fate to Athena’s and rejoin the hunt will come at a deadly cost–and still may not be enough to stop the rise of a new god with the power to bring humanity to its knees.

“Lore” had the potential to be a great story with a great concept, but at the end of the day it was just an okay read for me. Some people are describing this book as the Hunger Games with Greek Gods. I would say… that’s kind of accurate?

I think the thing that failed here was the writing, in my opinion. Greek mythology can be confusing as it is, but the writing in this made it way worse to keep up with. There was so much information at the beginning that I had to keep going back trying to understand what was going on and I kept wondering who was on which side. And not only was it confusing, but I still couldn’t feel attached to the characters or story. The setting and world-building was also not very captivating. It was a little dull and plain… and we’re talking about New York.

As characters go, Lore was a good character and her backstory made her a great heroine. I’m a sucker for strong female leads, and Lore is exactly that! But all the other characters were a little bland for me.

The romance also had potential, but it ended up being depressing. Castor was a good character, and I thought he was very compatible with Lore, but something was missing. I loved that they were childhood friends and they trained together, but maybe they should have had a little more space in the book to develop a proper romance.

I found “Lore” to be a little underwhelming and confusing. I’ve tried reading a Alexandra Bracken book before and it was very similar in writing style to this book. Which was also the reason why I stopped reading the other book.

Still, I really liked how the author incorporated mythology in this book and gave it a modern time twist. I also liked how the Gods were not romanticized in this – Athena, for example, was vile and very unlikeable. That was probably one of the best things about the writing.

It was entertaining, but it wasn’t the most enjoyable reading experience. If you like Greek mythology, I would say to try this one. Just keep in mind that this story happens in the modern world and the writing is a little off.