Member Reviews
I've seen so many reviewers call this cute, whimsical, clever, and fun that I wonder what it is that I missed, but sometimes a story just doesn't click, and in this case the main character was an annoyance.
Alexander Weiss is NOT having a good day. Killed in a freak accident, he manages to insult Athena in the afterlife - and get himself into quite the scenario.
The Greek Gods brought to the modern day worked really well. They're absolutely ruthless - as i prefer to imagine them - the lessons they want to teach are not the kind you'll forget easily. Alex himself had his moments, but it's a mark of how well the author wrote him that at times he really ticked me off!
I did feel like the book rushed. It could have been longer, and it could have taken it's time more. It's definitely got some great ideas behind it, so I'll be interested to see what this author does next.
Overall a really fun read, especially if you're familiar with/a fan of Greek mythology. 3.5 stars rounded up.
This was one of those books that wasn’t all bad but just wasn’t for me and failed to make me feel invested.
Part of the problem was that I had the wrong expectations. I had imagined a guy getting marooned on an island with a dangerous and bad*** gorgon, but then she’d take a liking to him instead of turning him to stone right away, and they’d fall in love. Instead, it was about a guy getting mixed up with Greek deities, getting rushed into a marriage with a gorgon, and then having battles and going on mini quests. It was one of those stories about an ordinary guy who gets thrust into a crazy situation, turns into a bad***, and gets the girl. The gorgon was basically just a damsel-in-distress who was hardly in the story at all, which disappointed me because she was the main reason I read this book. (I’ve heard from the author, however, that she’ll feature more in the next book.)
Another part of the problem was that the POV (which I think was omniscient) was very distant, and the story plot-driven. Not necessarily bad things, just not my preferences. I never felt close to the characters or really knew what their emotions were.
The other main reason I think I didn’t enjoy this as much as I wanted to was that it seemed like the book teetered on the edge of realistic and silly without fully committing to either, and that just didn’t quite work for me.
This was a fun, light-hearted kind of story though. Reading about Greek Gods is almost always fun. I feel like the author captured the “totally out of touch with humanity, bored, conniving, and a little bonkers” portrayal of them well. It also ended up having a nice, if slightly forced, message in the end about how *SPOILER* love isn’t just a feeling, it’s also a choice (as in, you have to choose to work on the relationship, to stay with that person). *END SPOILER*
Also, this was the first in a series, but it wraps everything up well enough that it works as a standalone if you want it to.
So overall, this didn’t quite work for me, but anyone who likes light-hearted, plot-driven, ordinary-to-bad*** stories with Greek gods may enjoy it more than I did.
This novel is conflicting. On one there is drama, but sometimes it’s too much. There is romance, but it has a multiple of issues on its own. The female love interest is a gorgon, but she is barely in the story at all. The world is well developed as are the characters, even if they aren’t particularly likable. The story itself, though flawed, can be entertaining and interesting.
This feels like a jack of all trades, ace of none novel. It does a lot but isn’t particularly great at any of it.
This book is so clever and fun in this wry way. You can't help but feel kind of bad for poor Alexander Weiss... Athena drops a whale on his head and it just kind of gets worse from there for him. Then again, he's kind of an arrogant ass so there's a little bit of thinking he gets what's coming to him. I love the relationships between the Olympians, especially the rivalry between Athena and Ares. And OMG Kharon, LOL!
Alex got on my nerves some, and I'd have loved to seen more of Euryale. This was a fun, light read as long as you're not looking for it to be more than it is. I think fans of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Neil Gaiman's American Gods, and Terry Pratchett's Discworld books (especially Death in the Discworld books...) will be big fans of The Gorgon Bride by Galen Surlak-Ramsey. If any of those authors/series are your jam, or if you love lighthearted comedic romps featuring a cast of characters from Greek mythology, definitely check this one out!
I have a serious problem with “The Gorgon Bride,” by Galen Sulak-Ramsey. One thing is planning a complicated romance that honors the heroic myths it is inspired by, and the other to base this romance on the sole fact that the couple falls in love at first sight, literally.
Despite the fact that Alex and Euryale would have made a perfect couple in any other book, maybe any other idea, to have them fall in love so fast made me frown whenever they spoke to each other in such pseudo-lovely terms. No one realized they’re in love this way, not even a guy lured by a Greek goddess into helping a gorgon find love.
To make things worse, this so-called love is enough to make Alex endure dangers no one with a sane mind would. Do you question the love you feel? Maybe it’s not even the feeling you expect to be then. Deal with it. No one goes on a wild hunt and faces the Greek pantheon in order to find answers, leave alone if this person is a teenager.
The best part is that we never get to know why this all got started. Sure, some Goddess says a thing or two about proving a point, and I’m certainly saving her explicit words in case you plan to read The Gorgon Bride, but she never clarifies what she was up to or why she needed what she said she needed. She simply acts, and fails to explain anything.
However, I do have to admit Galen Sulak-Ramsey created an entertaining book and story, played fair with the mythology he used and gave it a twist more than once. He met the expectations in terms of complexity and over-thought task his characters should accomplish, but that’s it.
Needless to say I don’t plan to read the sequel of this book, but I may give the author a second chance with a totally different book, preferably, one that has nothing to do with Greek deities and monsters.
A quite enjoyable and entertaining book but it lacks something in the character development.
Recommended to people who are interested in mythology.
Many thanks to Tiny Fox Press and Netgalley for the ARC
I was really wavering between 2 and 3 stars pretty much the entire time I was reading this book, but the ending was kind of cute actually so I decided to bump it up. This is a really hard book to rate because on the one hand there's instalove and it's horrible, but then as the novel progresses the protagonist learns that you actually need to work hard at love so it kind of redeems itself in that way. Also there's an awful love triangle between the protagonist, the 'gorgon bride', and his high-school sweetheart ...but again it doesn't end up the way you'd normally expect so I have to give some credit for trying to breathe new life into tired old tropes.
I think my main criticisms of this book would have to be that Euryale [the titular Gorgon bride] was not really in the book much except at the very beginning and end, and also that Alex just seemed to be way too good at everything and I found it kind of annoying/unbelievable at times. Still, it was definitely an interesting ride and even with the sometimes awkward writing I can tell the author was trying to get a good message across, so it turned out pretty okay in the end.
Narrative of this book flips back and forth repeatedly with I found to be very distracting. I liked the overall concept of the book but the delivery was off.
Although I enjoyed this book as a light take on mythology (Greek being my favourite) I did not enjoy this as much as I thought I would, there seems to be a lack of character development for some of the characters, and some others seemed a bit vapid and lacklustre for me, and having such a love for the myth I was left wanting more and having to fill in a lot of the gaps with my own knowledge of the subject. The beginning of the book was a little strange, but I mean, being squashed by a whale in the middle of land is always going to be a little weird.
Unlikely Heros, immediate love, Monsters, Quests, and Gods! This is a book with all of those as the hero struggles through a great many challenges. He falls down, he gets discouraged, he loses faith, but he has realistic reactions in many of the scenarios. Not everyone can handle finding out that Greek Mythology is real and that you've drawn the gods' attention. There are some fun interpretations of Greek history and mythology. I think the author did a fun job of creating personalities from some of the stories of the gods.
There were some issues for me though.
Alex's complete lack of any Greek mythology knowledge gets him into some trouble. I just don't see how an adult pianist who has been through a decent education wouldn't have a little more knowledge- however, that may be just me. I also think he could be pretty dense at times and I wish his wife was given more depth of character. She had potential to be a very interesting character. Instead, we get an ingenue who becomes a scary monster when jealous/angry. To me, this read like a Young Adult or New Adult tale, and I had to repeatedly remind myself that the hero was a grown man and his wife was an immortal who'd been around for thousands of years. The lack of depth and the repeated obvious 'moral of the story' just felt a little more juvenile than I was expecting, especially given the cover art.
Overall, I enjoyed this as a light fantasy read with a touch of romance and fun use of classical mythology. I'd read another book by this author.
Trigger Warning: violence, coercion, gods playing with mortals lives
The Gorgon Bride by Galen Sulak-Ramsey is a combination of Greek mythology mixed with fantasy. As a fan of Greek mythology and its many stories and heroes I was looking forward to a fun-filled romance and tale full of Gods and their vengeance.
This is a light Greek tale; there are plenty of references to the Gods and Heroes of myth. We get a few of the more well knowns, Zeus, Hades, Ares, Athena, and Aphrodite and then a few of the lesser known. While they are present I feel like the only ones that see any true development are Athena and Ares. Overall I feel like the author leaves a lot of development of the characters to the reader’s knowledge Greek mythology. If the reader is unfamiliar with this I feel there will be a let down here, and I feel for the authors subtleties in his descriptions when he does get going into dialog or a bit of world building he shows his expensive knowledge but I definitely feel he could have taken us on a more through version of his vision for this book.
To be honest, I was a little disappointed by the lack of character building especially for the main characters, Alex and Euryale. We spend very little time with Euryale, who is one of the three Gorgon sisters, Euryale and her sisters were daughters of primordial sea god and goddess Phorcys and Ceto, who personified the dangers of the sea. Aside from a few chapters though she is barely in the novel at all, which for me was a bit of a letdown, I was looking forward to getting to know her and how she and Alex would develop a relationship. I really wanted to see how a relationship for these two would happen but for me this novel tried very hard and just fell rather flat.
I would recommend this for someone who enjoys mythology and wants a light read that is not overly complicated. While it was enjoyable I was just expecting a bit more overall.
I quite enjoyed this. It was fun fantasy adventure featuring The Gods, adversary, quests, true love, friendship, etc. plus fun. don't think i didn't catch all those princess bride references there.
alex weiss answers a knock on his door and ends up squished by a whale. you'd think being squashed flat would be the end of Alex's existence, but you'd be wrong. it's just the start. Alex's adventures start when he falls into a marriage with Euryale, a gorgon, and ends up in a battle royale with ares, god of war.