Stevie‘s review of Girl, Goddess, Queen by Bea Fitzgerald
Young Adult Greek Mythology published by Penguin 20 Jul 23
I’m greatly appreciating the ongoing crop of Greek mythology adaptations, especially the books that put a feminist slant on the stories without completely rewriting the basic premise. This one particularly appealed, since the story of Persephone and Hades is one that particularly intrigues me. Daughter of Demeter and Zeus, young Persephone – or Kore as her father names her – is granted dominion over flowers by her father, after she asks for the world. Isolated by her mother on the island of Sicily, away from the other gods and goddesses, Persephone grows up with only nymphs for company and receives a very skewed view of relationships and sexuality from her mother’s fears of rape on one side and the nymphs’ liberated attitudes on the other. When Demeter decides that it’s time for her daughter to be married off to one of the gods of Olympus or Oceanus, in order to protect her from the predations of all the others, Persephone rebels and runs away to the third of the kingdoms ruled over by the gods: Hades.
Once there, she requests Xenia – Hestia’s bond of hospitality – from Hades himself, meaning that he has to protect her and keep her presence secret from the other gods. Hades reluctantly agrees to her terms and sends the rest of his court away for the duration of Persephone’s stay.
Persephone explores Hades’ palace and quickly realises that it is almost a direct copy of Zeus’ palace, but with some notable missing rooms. She also meets the palace staff: equivalents of the nymphs she knew before, who feed her on food brought from the other kingdom. So she will not eat the fruits of Hades and be forced to stay there forever. As time passes, Persephone learns more about both her new home and her powers, which have seemingly increased since her arrival. She also learns more about Hades himself, who has been traumatised by his time as a boy soldier and seeks solace in creative pursuits among hobbies normally considered to be womanly crafts.
A friendship slowly develops between Persephone and Hades, but eventually Zeus discovers his daughter’s whereabouts and demands she return and marry the god her parents have chosen for her. Persephone, obviously, has other ideas, especially now that she has started reforming Hades’ kingdom to make separate areas for the souls of those who have been wronged and those who did them harm while they were alive. Hades is impressed by Persephone’s improvements to his kingdom and relishes the additional time he has to devote to his crafts now that Persephone has started to take over some of the day-to-day admin. The pair decide to marry, in order to thwart Zeus and Demeter’s plans, which is probably not the best idea ever, but it all works out in the end. And, yes, pomegranates are involved, but I’ll leave the how and why of that for potential readers to discover for themselves.
I loved this book. The central characters felt very real and lots of the gods were very queer, as they should be. I’m looking forward to reading more from the author, especially as it looks like she’s diving into more mythology soon.
Grade: A
Summary:
To hell with love, this goddess has other plans…
Thousands of years ago, the gods told a lie: how Persephone was a pawn in the politics of other gods. How Hades kidnapped Persephone to be his bride. How her mother, Demeter, was so distraught she caused the Earth to start dying.
The real story is much more interesting.
Persephone wasn’t taken to hell: she jumped. There was no way she was going to be married off to some smug god more in love with himself than her.
Now all she has to do is convince the Underworld’s annoyingly sexy, arrogant and frankly rude ruler, Hades, to fall in line with her plan. A plan that will shake Mount Olympus to its very core.
But consequences can be deadly, especially when you’re already in hell…
Read an excerpt.
