This summer, it happened that there were two Hades & Persephone retellings being published in the Netherlands. One of them was A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St. Clair, the other was Girl, Goddess, Queen by Bea Fitzgerald. I decided to leave some time between reading both books, because otherwise I felt like it was too much. So, now the time was finally there to read one of the books I was most curious about for this summer. Did it live up to my curiosity?

About the book

• Title: Girll, Goddess, Queen
• Author: Bea Fitzgerald
• Publish date: July 20, 2023
• Publisher: Penguin
• ISBN: 9780241624272
• Number of pages: 496
• Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

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 . . . A fierce, fresh and enormously fun YA fantasy re-imagining from a growing TikTok superstar.

My review

So, this was one of my most anticipated books of this summer. I know it is another retelling of the myth of Hades and Persephone, so there wouldn’t be much new elements added to the story. yes, I was aware of that and kept that in mind whilst reading. However, I was hoping for some different elements though and that it was an easy read. Many people were positive about it and the blurb sounded really appealing. Unfortunately, I was struggling a lot with this book.

Let’s start with the positives about this story. Firstly, the writing. This is Fitzgeralds’ debut and I barely noticed it. The writing was very accessible with relative short chapters. The potential of this author is already visible. Secondly, there were indeed some differences to the original myth Things were handled in a different way and Persephone stood up for herself and made all her dicissions by herself. Even though this is something positive, it’s connected to the negative aspects of this book.

Let’s face it, the main characters were insufferable. Persephone was whining a lot and she was also doubting herself a lot. This could be because of her insecurities which comes with her isolation on the island, but it took her so incredibly long to recognize her feelings and act upon them. Hades on the other hand was your typical cinamon roll or book boyfriend. In the original stories (and in the retellings I’ve read) he’s really gloomy and dark and honestly that makes him more interesting. His character shows more growth in these stories. Here, he’s all fluff and that’s not how he should be portrayed. This makes this book too much Ya for me and it gives me the feeling that authors think that YA readers should be protected from darker characters. I mean, many YA readders can handle those type of characters and not everything should be sweet and fluffy. This sentiment really took away my reading enjoyment.

Furthermore, the plot was so slow. I struggled a lot. It was easy to put the book aside and leave it there for a long, long while. It didn’t really intrigue me and I cringed a lot. I mean, the take is interesting, but the excecution wasn’t. Therefore, Girl, Goddess, Queen by Bea Fitzgerald was less enjoyable than I’d hoped and expected.