Lore by Alexandra Bracken
Genre: Urban fantasy
Age category: Young adult
Release Date: January 4, 2021
Review
Editor’s Note: This review has been trimmed for mild spoilers and will be updated in a few weeks.
This is a book that is designed to feel epic, and it succeeds.
In this world, it’s possible to take on the powers of one of the great Olympians—if you can manage to slay one of them during a brief period of vulnerable time known as the Agon. Families with long legacies dating back to the old Greek heroes fight fiercely to take control of these powers, and at the center of the story (unwillingly) is a descendent of Perseus, Melora—called Lore for short.
Plenty of protagonists have the classic “resist the call to adventure,” but Lore takes it a step further. Anytime our heroine contemplates jumping headlong into the adventure, she finds herself confronted with a version of herself she doesn’t like at all: someone violent and terrifying with no sense of the moral compass she has when she’s not in the fight. To complicate things, some characters encourage her fighting while others are trying to steer her away. Lore has a heavy past, and her desire to come to terms with it drives a lot of what she does.
I’ve always been one to find the dynamic and dialogue between characters to be more interesting than action scenes between characters, so I was naturally drawn to the struggles Lore has between her core group. Nevertheless, the action scenes were intense and easy to follow. Moreover, they felt unique from one another, which can be a tricky thing to accomplish. Lore’s outlook at the start of each fight has a big impact on how she approaches it, and you can feel her strong emotions through her actions and strategy. Lore became an admirable character not only for her strength but also in her humanity and her willingness to admit her weak points and mistakes.
The plot had a few interesting reveals that I didn’t see coming—and one or two that I did, but nothing that held back my enjoyment of watching the story unfold. The scale is grand, but the emotions are personal.
If you’re a fan of Greek mythology (and I most certainly am), the book is absolutely worth a read.
Rating: 4 out of 5
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