3.5 stars

I hear "sapphic dark academia" and i read it. The first thing i liked about this graphic novel is the art style, i really liked the color contrast and it served really well to create the atmosphere of this magical all girls boarding school.

If you're looking for something plot-heavy and with a lot of development and world building this is probably not it. However, if you're into more atmospheric vibes and beautiful sapphic art and you're okay with the story feeling a little underdeveloped i definitely recommended checking it out.

TWs: blood, suicide

Sara is accepted at an all-girls magical boarding school called The Rose where she meets a mysterious girl named Silje. The two of them quickly form a friendship that begins to blossom into something more. However, Sara comes to find that the school has its own dark secrets and harsh punishments for those who break its rules …

Eros/Psyche by Maria Llovet is deliciously gothic and atmospheric sapphic dark academia mystery that left me with so many conflicting emotions.

On one hand, it’s gorgeous to look at. There are so many cinematic, wordless panels that this comic begins to feel more like an aesthetic mood piece than a substantive story.

Along those same lines, I feel like there wasn’t sufficient build up for the shocking reveal towards the end, and after finishing its final pages, I still wish I had more answers.

Overall, this is a beautiful disaster of a story that’s filled with queer yearning and angst and fierce sisterly bonds, and even despite its flaws, I loved it still.

Translation error? Maybe not originally written in English? Because the dialogue was atrocious and disjointed. That took away a LOT from the story. And the story itself was messy. I was disappointed. I really wanted a girls' school romance and mystery!

This is a tough one. The art is gorgeous; visually, it's lovely to look at, and goes well with the story. The story, though...it's barely there. Lots of atmosphere, but not a lot of content. The bones of the story are good- a mysterious all-girl school with a small amount of students that grows ever smaller as students are culled after regular exams, where the girl with the lowest score leaves after each exam; an unknown curriculum that seems to include spells, potions, and the like; sapphic vibes simmering on a slow burn; rules that have dark consequences if broken; and a general sense of something sinister going on underneath everything. Sounds good, right? But all we really get are hints of things without any real explanation. The two main characters, Sara and Silje, don't have much personality, and I couldn't really connect to either of them. They're in school, but nothing is said of classes, other than the two collecting herbs, roots, etc., to make potions, do spells, I don't really know. No teachers (or any other adults) are ever seen, but we're told the are Rules That Must Not Be Broken (but not what the rules are), so someone must enforce them, and there are regular exams (in fact, the exam process is the most explained aspect of the story, in that we learn that the girl with the lowest score is dressed in white and must leave the school, and that's the extent of the explanation), so someone must give and score the exams. There's a mysterious Room that no one wants to be called into, someone must be in there. Then we have the attraction growing between Sara and Silje, but I didn't see a lot for it to be based on. Then the end, the big reveal...isn't a big surprise, and there's still no explanation for why all this is happening. It's dissatisfying, so much potential, but so little substance. I have no problem with vague beginnings, slow revelation of details over time, all of that, but the story should become clearer the further in you go. I don't know, maybe if I was in just the right mood I'd have enjoyed this more, and I didn't dislike it, but I don't feel like it lived up to the description; rather, the description gives you almost all the explanation there is. Have I conveyed how vague this was yet?
Tl;dr: if you're okay mysterious stories with little clue to what's going on but are really pretty to look at, you're good.

#MariaLlovetsErosPsyche #NetGalley

A very slow burning sapphic romance. Everything about this comic is slow burning. The story is almost non-existent. I got more from reading the blurb on this Goodreads entry than I did from reading the story. It's about some girls at a boarding school. One of them is sent packing after every exam. That's the entire plot. Nothing is explained. I found it all very frustrating. Maria Llovet's art is quite lovely though.

This graphic novel is a good representation of "no plot, just vibe". Like you're not sure what's happening, the story isn't completely explained, you're mostly left wondering what's happening.
But the vibe is immaculate. Boarding school? Witches and magic? Lesbians? This is definitely my thing.
I would have liked for the story and relationship to be a bit more developed but I loved the atmosphere and the graphics a lot.

Not much to say other than nice art???? I'm not well versed enough in ancient greek myths so IDK how good the story was in regards to those myths, but I'm not sure if it would have made a big difference to me.... Like, I guESS it was kinda spooky? Probably only of light interest to people who are into this new fangled "dark academia" thing.

Book Review
Title: Eros/Psyche by Maria Llovet
Genre: LGBT, Graphic Novel
Rating: 4.25 Stars
Eros/Psyche was a strange yet interesting graphic novel following a bunch of budding witches at a female boarding school called The Rose. We are introduced to our protagonist, Sara, who seems to be telling the story in the past tense and the whole graphic novel is snap shots of her time at The Rose accompanied by her narration from the future. The first person she meets at The Rose is Silje and the pair quickly become almost inseparable which has an added benefit for Sara and Silje is the key student meaning she is in charge of the other students and keeping them in line. There don’t seem to be many rules at The Rose but the ones they do have are heavily enforced and punishment for breaking them is a trip to The Room.
The Room is a mysterious place and the first time we are introduced to it is when a student hangs herself after being taken there. However, the student don’t linger on this long as they have exams coming up and the student that scores the lowest will be forced to leave the school. Over the next several months students come and go from The Rose and during this time the relationship between Sara and Silje is deepening too. However, our focus is drawn to a new student, Vanna, who isn’t like the other girls at the school as she is disturbed and violent and ends up getting kicked out barely a week after arriving but before she leaves she says something to Sara that she doesn’t share with anyone. We are also introduced to Tamlyn who finds an injured boy on the school grounds and keeps him hidden while she helps him heal and the pair end up in a relationship. When this is discovered the boy is taken by Silje and shown the way out and Tamlyn is taken to The Room and she isn’t the same afterwards.
After witnessing this Sara is hesitant to take her relationship with Silje to a physical level but attempts it but Silje’s reaction at first isn’t a good one. Sara obviously hurt hides away in the garden where they first met and Silje comes to find her. Here their relationship takes a physical turn and things begin returning to normal but not for long. It soon becomes clear that the student numbers are going down until only Sara, Silje and Tamlyn remain and one needs to leave. Tamlyn volunteers as she has been wanting to leave The Rose for a while meaning the last two students are Sara and Silje and only one can remain. During the final exams, Sara is fully prepared to leave the school but is heartbroken to learn that Silje is leaving not her. Here Silje explains something about the school that I wasn’t expecting and her role within the school as key student which is now being passed to Sara. The ending leads me to believe that Sara is still at the school and that one day she hopes to reunite with Silje like Eros and Psyche did in Greek mythology. Overall, Eros/Psyche was an interesting story with a great minimalist art style and surprisingly little dialogue meaning the story is told almost entirely through its imagery and it took me by surprise.

I loved the artwork and thought it matched the very interesting premise and storytelling quite well. Unfortunately, the actual writing needs a lot of fleshing out. I stopped multiple times, once for actual research because SURELY this was confusing because it wasn't actually the first book in the series? But apparently it is! I actually really don't mind when comics focus at bit more on atmosphere and vibe over plot, but not when they are trying to tell such a complex story. It felt like work trying to understand what was going on, which took away from my enjoyment of the art and atmosphere, so much so that when the big twist did come, it didn't do much for me as the reader.

This was a very interesting beginning to a graphic novel series. The art work was beautiful and the atmosphere was very much mysterious/dark academia. This edition also showed the beginning of a sapphic love story, which I am interested to see grow. I did find some bits of the narrative confusing. I had questions throughout most of this first book, but I assume future editions will clear up some of the confusion.

Thank you NetGalley.

Sapphic, dark academia? Yes, please!

Great plot needed a bit more details. the illustrations i thought matched the story wonderfully

This was a mess.
Maybe it was supposed to feel oniric, give vibes of dark academia and mystery. a sapphic twilight in a boarding school?
I'm not sure of what it was supposed to be but what it was.. it was a mess. No concept of time and place, no order in the story, no *sense* of what was happening or why. I'm sorry but I couldn't follow anything.
I'm honestly surprised it's getting published.

The idea behind this graphic novel is super interesting to me so I was quite excited to read this. However, it kind of fell flat in its face. Everything in it was just super underdeveloped. I was so confused about what was going on for most of the graphic novel. I didn't have a good sense of who the characters were at all. I didn't really care for their connection because of it and the big twist in the end had 0 impact because I just didn't really care for anything going on. I did quite like the art style though.

Feels like it’s going to be a very tropey private school girls romance with weird private school rituals, but has a neat sci fi twist to it. As a first work, very solid, even if Llovet avoids backgrounds for most of the book.

The art work here was beautiful but I just didn't understand the story. I read all available volume and I'm still in the dark regarding what it was about.
Thanks to @netgalley for allowing me to read the arc in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

Thank you to the publisher and artist

I enjoy Llovet's work. Consistently erotic with messed up characters and gorgeous art. I always look forward to women in comics, and she's a macabre gem.

A lush, fascinating story of a secret society, and two girls caught in the web of this mysterious school. The story needs a few more details fleshed out to really be a fuller story, but it was dark and kept drawing me back for more.

I decided to read this on a whim, first pulled in by the stunning cover. At first, I had no expectations for it because I jumped in blindly, but this turned out to be a rather charming and intriguing graphic novel with beautiful art.

First of all, the plot was slightly confusing at times, something that would usually put me off. However, I thought that in the context of this story, the slight confusion worked in its favour. The action takes place in an all-girls boarding school, a setting that is already quite whimsical and removed from the rest of the world, creating some sort of parallel reality where we can forget about the outside world. Additionally, some bizarre events happen in the story, and we don’t really get complete explanations, but rather, we’re rolling with it. This sense of confusion and inexplicable happenings added to the charm of this graphic novel.

Another really important aspect that was vital to the story was the art. Equal parts beautiful and creepy, some panels even on the verge of being quite gory. The art is what originally pulled me towards this book, and I was not disappointed with it. I really did quite enjoy every single page, and I believe that this art style was the perfect way to tell this story.

Finally, this was very short—I read it in less than an hour—which was the perfect length for it. Sometimes a short, queer, whimsical graphic novel is all you need, and this fits that criteria perfectly.

All in all, Eros/Psyche was a very charming story filled with gorgeous art. I would recommend this to everyone because it’s so short that you might as well give this short graphic novel a chance. I personally enjoyed it quite a bit and I feel like it’s one that many people will find as interesting as I did.

Maria Llovet's Eros/Psyche is an absolutely beautiful piece of work. This graphic novel uses colour wonderfully, but the style of the illustrations and the story itself didn't hold up well for me. While it was pretty to look at, I struggled to get involved and stay within the story.

Two out of five stars.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

Sapphic, dark academia? Yes, please!

I was so excited to read this graphic novel, and while I loved Llovet's art style, the story's execution wasn't for me.