Lore Olympus: Volume One by Rachel Smythe

Experience the propulsive love story of two Greek gods—Hades and Persephone—brought to life with lavish artwork and an irresistible contemporary voice.

Scandalous gossip, wild parties, and forbidden love—witness what the gods do after dark in this stylish and contemporary reimagining of one of mythology’s most well-known stories from creator Rachel Smythe. Featuring a brand-new, exclusive short story, Smythe’s original Eisner-nominated web-comic Lore Olympus brings the Greek Pantheon into the modern age with this sharply perceptive and romantic graphic novel.

This volume collects episodes 1-25 of the #1 WEBTOON comic, Lore Olympus.

Графічні романи не часто мені трапляються, але цей дуже сподобався. Є в цьому щось дуже серіальне.

I am and have always been Hades and Persephone trash. So to say that I wanted to read this forever ago is an understatement. But we know how it goes when you want to read all the things ever at the same time...I'M READING AS FAST AS I CAN , PEOPLE. Anyhoots.....this was retelling perfection. You read that correct. PERFECTION. Tragic, of course because what Greek mythology story doesn't have it's share of tragedy. But it had its fair share of adorable and hilarious moments. The art was definitely icing on the cake.

I'm sure it won't be long now before I'm fully caught up. And when that happens I'll probably start it all over as I wait for more.

TW: rape, sexual abuse, domestic violence, toxic relationships

Ok. I don't get the hype with this book? It's problematic.

A 2000 year old God (and don't get me wrong in Greek Mythology Hades is one of my favourite Gods) being involved with a 19(!) year old Persephone. It's creepy in my opinion.

The story itself lacks depth. Yes, you can tell the author did quite some research at points, but the execution of the story was bad. It was very repetitive. It sometimes felt like the story was going forward only for it to go backward again to the first point. Multiple pov's which means lots of episodes are repeated. It bored the shit out of me.

I did really appreciate the author for weaving in the sexual abuse and putting a trigger warning on episodes where it's obviously happening. I still think the entire book should have a trigger warning, but that's a different case. The episodes with trigger warnings were the best this author has made: they were full of raw emotion and depth.

The artwork is BEAUTIFUL. I loved the artwork so much. I love that the author uses different colours for a lot of characters and I really like that Hades' and Persephone's colours are opposite of each other (blue-pink).

I am contemplating if I should continue with season 2. I'm still not sure. I don't know if I can handle more repetitive scenes D:

I am not a fan of Greek mythology, but the story is interesting in spite of that. The artwork is gorgeous. Bringing the story into modern day was clever as well. I will probably continue on to book two.