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A review by aformeracceleratedreader
Lifestyles of Gods and Monsters by Emily Roberson

fast-paced

3.0

I've read a lot of Greek myth retellings, and even a couple minotaur retellings now, and this one was solid enough. I read other reviews saying how terrible the characters were, but if you're already familiar with the story of the minotaur and other stories with some of these characters, this portrayal was pretty accurate to the original myth with an expansion of Ariadne and Asterion (and to a lesser extent Icarus and Ariadne's sister Acalle although I wish we got a little more of the sisters). Minos is supposed to be unlikeable, selfish, and just generally a disgusting human and he was portrayed accurately in this. I was fine with Thesius being underdeveloped since he is portrayed so greatly/highly in the original myths, and him taking a back seat in the character development side was kind of nice. In the other retelling Thesius was a total ass (which was refreshing because the heroes of the original myths could not have been these perfect beings considering how the gods were, and I believe a lot of the "villains" in these og myths were not truly bad, but maybe all the feminist retellings have something to do with my changed beliefs😂) so I was low-key glad he wasn't in this one. I appreciate that Thesius wasn't some perfect being but wasn't a garbage person either and did end up helping Ariadne as much as she helped him.
Also saw criticism of the "instalove" but like...that's also pretty accurate to how the original myths are so I don't have much complaint with that.
 I really enjoyed the humanizing of the Minotaur/Asterion in this retelling and another I have read. 
I do agree with others on the pacing being a little off. It is sort of slow in the beginning and then all the active action happens all at the end.
But I think Greek myths meeting reality show is a great concept and honestly surprised it took this long for a book to be written about it. Would enjoy more like it tbh with the focus remaining on the female characters of these myths.