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Readers, sometimes we pick a known, loved book for book club, and other times we don’t.  When we don’t, sometimes I wonder what in the crazy we’ve gotten ourselves into.  This week is one of those weeks.  I’m only a third or so in, but it is off the wall, interesting, gorgeously written, fantastically creative, and bound to be great fodder for an amazing book club conversation.  If you’ve read, watched, or just want to discuss  American Gods by Neil Gaiman, then sign up here  and plan to join us THIS Friday, May 7 at 7:30 p.m. CST.  You don’t have to finish the book, or even start it, to join us, but you do have to be ok with spoilers!  

Dear readers, sometimes no expectations is the perfect situation, and sometimes it’s not.  I had NO idea what I was getting into with Lore by Alexandra Bracken.  I knew my local librarians read and loved it, that it was everywhere, and had something to do with the Greek gods.  I haven’t read Alexandra Bracken before but I am now interested, very interested, in her backlist.  Lore is a gorgeously written, creative story about a familiar pantheon that reinvents it in a really interesting way.  Melora, Lore’s full name, is my new favorite literary name, and I may or may not be looking for hunters (and hashashins for that matter) any time I leave the house (not that I expect any at the library, grocery store, or my office, but that’s not relevant), and wondering if they were hiding in the mist last week.  (Yes, that’s a Percy Jackson reference.  My littlest reader is currently reading The Battle of the Labyrinth).  

Usually when I know I’m going to read a book, I don’t look for more information because I don’t want to spoil the experience.  (See also: Downton Abbey Movie #2 – I’m going to see it and all those that follow and it just doesn’t matter so long as the cast is there.)  For me, Lore is one of those times when I should have had more expectations.  Yes, I’m shoulding on myself.  I also listened to The Lazy Sisters book episode today (yes, there’s a paywall, sorry, but also, Hannah and Kendra are worth it).  In the spirit of The Lazy Genius, these sisters were talking about their summer reading plans and how they organize their TBR stacks.  The best part though, it was about how they determine if a book is for them or not before putting it on their TBR stack.  I know, I need to focus more on that because I definitely lean towards “let’s read all the things,” but as Anne Bogel points out periodically, there are more books published in a given day than I can possibly read in a year (at least I think that’s the statistic, regardless, SO many books).  While that’s sad, it’s also really exciting because I’m never going to run out of books to read, and the odds of enough of them being the right books for me feel good (it’s a feeling, and based on absolutely no data).  

I say that I should have read the marketing copy for Lore because maybe I’d have understood more and my expectations would have situated me to enjoy the experience more.  I’m not going to spoil, but I am going to explain a smidge.  I wanted a nearly 500 page work to include character development worthy of that length (read: substantial).  I wanted to dig in with our people and see them grow, but dear readers, this book just covers one Agon, which is seven days.  ONE WEEK.  While there is a substantial amount of character development when one considers that it happens over one action-filled week, upon finishing the book, I was initially disappointed that it wasn’t more.  I don’t need more epilogue for this one, even though I may have told Ashley I wanted less ambiguity with the ending.  After a couple of days of reflection, I like the ending and I think it fits as is (and really isn’t ambiguous at all).  At first I thought this book wasn’t for me because there was so much plot and action and so little development, but looking back at it after a couple of days, I really enjoyed it.  I wish I’d have known the time frame included, but that’s all I’d change about the experience, oh, and I’d get more details on Medusa!  I wanted her to be a star in the book because she’s on the cover, but that isn’t the case.  Like Lore, the other women in this story, and so many women in history, Medusa is misunderstood, misremembered by history because of her gender.  That is definitely a point the book brings out, but it isn’t really what it’s about.  Lore is about owning your past, being the person you wish you were, and leaving it all on the mat for yourself and your people.  

I’m giving Lore 3.5 stars, which I’ll round up to 4.  I might read it again, but I might not.  Regardless, I’ll be watching out for what Bracken comes out with next, and I’ll be looking more closely at her backlist, and reading the marketing copy.  If you like YA, action novels, or a fresh take on the Greek gods, you should take another look at Lore.  When I was still early in the book, I may have described it to Ashley as Percy Jackson meets Hunger Games, and other than the whole series thing, I still think it fits.  

What book have you read recently that is helping you reconsider how you approach books?  

~Nikki 

Settle down for a few minutes. I’m going to tell you a story. I’m going to tell you the story of a book-loving, millennial woman who follows authors and independent bookstores on Instagram for late-night, early-morning, mid-day, all-the-damn-time scrolling. And then one chilly day in January 2021, she saw her local indie bookstore post this delicious, eye-catching collection of pre-order bonuses for a book she had never heard about even though the author’s name had been on her radar a time or two. Of course, by the time she saw said IG post, it was too late to pre-order said book to receive the badass Medusa pin for her collection. She is still bitter about that.

No surprise here that Lore by Alexandra Bracken is the book and I am that social-media addicted millennial woman. Looking back on this time, which involved lots of screenshots to the book-buddy, this was probably when Mythology in March (now May) was discussed because I was out of digital holds at the time and Nikki was still able to recommend it to her library. I was willing, at the time, to buy the dang book, either digital or dead tree because I was INTO THE MARKETING COPY HARD. This is probably where Nikki skipped over dissecting the marketing copy, because I did, and, well, sometimes we have differing tastes, and that’s good and I’m just thankful my book buddy was willing to read with me 1) for the blog and 2) because I was so dang excited.

Bracken, a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twelve Young Adult books including The Darkest Minds series and the Passenger duology, lived up to the marketing copy in providing a “sweepingly ambitious, high-octane tale of power, destiny, love, and redemption.” Lore was, from the first page, filled with action. I was sucked into the go-go-go and the family vengeance plot arc that’s typically seen with a male protagonist. Melora Perseous is #feministgoals. I am sure Bracken used her experience of living and working in NYC when she worked in children’s book publishing to create Lore’s home city. Bracken currently lives in her home state of Arizona with her tiny pup, Tennyson, where she writes full-time.

Speaking of home cities, let’s talk the aegis. The aegis is, traditionally and in Lore, the shield and/or armor of Athena where the visage of Medusa was placed to offer protection from and sow fear in her enemies. There’s a scale replica of The Parthenon in Nashville’s Centennial Park. The building is an art museum and features a 40 foot tall statue of Athena Parthenos. You can see the Gorgon head on both her shield and her breastplate. How was Medusa’s head placed in the shield? Well, because Perseus chopped it off and placed it there.

For the Agon, Melora Perseous is of the line of the ancient hero, and only members of her family can wield the shield against other hunters or gods. As the last living descendant of Perseus, Lore is the only one who can lift the shield, its magic refuses any other hand. The finding and claiming of the aegis is central to the plot – no spoilers here except that it was everything I wanted it to be in the end.

Lore is a bit of a tome, and action packed in the best way. (Look, this girl loves yoga but she really loves hitting a bag real hard, and kinda gets into watching professional fights more than is necessarily typical of her gender or age group.) It checked off so many boxes for me: Greek mythology in a modern setting, a badass heroine, a diverse cast of characters (which could have been really hard in a book about the descendants of white people, but Bracken used NYC to amazing advantage), fights and weapons, and a solid ending that does not leave me wanting more. I’m unlikely to re-read this book even though I really liked it, so I’m giving it a solid 4 star rating. Me, I’m ready to see it be made into a movie pronto, cause it’d be an excellent action flick.

What’s a recent book you’ve read that you really want to see on the screen?

~Ashley

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