Review: Lore by Alexandra Bracken

Lore is being pitched as Percy Jackson meets The Hunger Games, which is a pretty solid comp. It is the story of our main character, Lore, an orphan living in NYC, who we meet as a competition called the Agon begins. The Agon happens every 7 years and is a punishment for 9 of the Greek gods who defied Zeus back in the day. The descendants of different old school Greek heroes must hunt down these gods (Athena, Artemis, Apollo, Hermes, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Posiden, and Dionysus) who are made mortal for the 7 days, and if successfully killed the person who did it takes that gods immortality and aspects of their power. Lore's family was murdered in the previous Agon, and she has completely cut ties from her previous life and is trying to stay out of the Agon entirely. She is unsuccessful when a wounded Athena shows up on her doorstep and demands Lore help her. The story absolutely sprints from this point.

Lore is Alexandra Bracken's first standalone novel since her debut (which I should read soon). I knew going into this book, I was probably going to love it, I loved her previous YA books, and I really enjoy her fast-paced writing, character-focused emotional journeys, and I love a long book (long is obviously genre/age group subjective here, she writes long YA). This book is fast-paced and is very focused on Lore's emotional journey; a lot of character exploration is fit into 7 days. It also has Alexandra Brackens signature deep backstory dives in a way I really enjoyed this go around. I will say that her Greek gods certainly bring the flavor of the original Greek myths, this story is violent, and I completely would not recommend it to a young audience, which makes some of the PJO comp potentially confusing.

Lore is very focused on Lore's emotional journey. Most of the narrative rests on her character journey, which does make one of the reveals at the end kind of lackluster because it is related to someone else's memories, and Lore does not actively participate in that plot reveal. Avoiding spoilers, but that one instance would have maybe been served by a dual POV (though that would probably be disruptive to the novel) or a different manner of discovery, it just wasn't that emotionally impactful for me because it was so outside Lore. But the rest of the narrative really worked for me as Lore's story! She is an incredibly interesting character. Her narrative very much engages with anger, and the ways in which women have power taken from them while also having an element of a revenge tale.

I loved the other characters in the novel as well! Especially her roommate and friend Miles. I adore Miles; he is an excellent take on the 'normal person in a magical situation' character type, a very excellent audience surrogate who also has a fun character journey for himself. A lot of the relationship-building is done with flashback chapters in a way that I found very effective. I really loved watching the relationships change over both the years and the seven days. And, because this is a murder filled competition, watching the way the friendships shift as alliances change is always a good and betrayal filled time.

The plot is incredibly fast-paced! So much happens in this book. So it is kind of weird that I wanted it to be a little bit longer? The end of the book was a touch fast though I assume this won't be a common opinion; there might not be that many people who read a 460-page book and want more. On the whole, this book is full of twists and builds information reveals really excellently. I wanted to keep reading so much that I literally took the hardcover on a mile-long walk with my dog. Luckily my sidewalks are very well paved because I was absolutely not looking at my feet. I thought I had quite a few things figured out, and even when I was close to right, I was wrong about how or why. I love a good twist.

This is a very feminist engagement with Greek mythology. I don' want to spoil anything, but if you are familiar with feminist discourse about Athena, you probably know there are lots of folks who want to interpret her as a subversively feminist figure in a way that isn't super supported by historical context around ancient Greek society, or by the actual written myths. I think Bracken engages with this myth in a really amazing way. I was worried for a second, but I genuinely love the way she wrote Athena's character. You can really see the research and thought that went into Athena, as well as the critique of patriarchal power structures Bracken levels through this character and in the novel as a whole.

I will certainly be rereading this book. I knew I was going to be reading this book multiple times about 100 pages in; I love rereading stories that had reveals that surprised me, and I think my opinion on the end of the book might be mutable! This feeling is ultimately why I am rating this book 5 stars; if I have a clear and very strong impulse to reread, then I clearly enjoyed engaging with a story and want to dive deeper.

I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads and The StoryGraph. I would obviously recommend this book! Anyone who was a PJO middle schooler (or just enjoyed any part of the Riordan-verse at any point in life, I think I was fully a junior in high school when I read him for the first time), anyone who likes modern takes on myth, and people who want stories that deeply engage with feminist ideals in fiction, especially choice and anger.