Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC, nonbinary MC
PoV: 1st-person, past-tense; third-person, past tense
Published on: 13th August 2024
ISBN: 1668035251
Goodreads
Young, headstrong Psyche has captured the eyes of every suitor in town and far beyond with her tempestuous beauty, which has made her irresistible as a woman yet undesirable as a wife. Secretly, she longs for a life away from the expectations and demands of men. When her father realizes that the future of his family and town will be forever cursed unless he appeases an enraged Aphrodite, he follows the orders of the Oracle, tying Psyche to a rock to be ravaged by a monstrous husband. And yet a monster never arrives.
When Eros, nonbinary deity of desire, sees Psyche, she cannot fulfill her promise to her mother Aphrodite to destroy the mortal young woman. Instead, Eros devises a plan to sweep Psyche away to an idyllic palace, hidden from the prying eyes of Aphrodite, Zeus, and the outside world. There, against the dire dictates of Olympus, Eros and Psyche fall in love. Each night, Eros visits Psyche under the cover of impenetrable darkness, where they both experience untold passion and love. But each morning, Eros flies away before light comes to break the spell of the palace that keeps them safe.
Before long, Psyche’s nights spent in pleasure turn to days filled with doubts, as she grapples with the cost of secrecy and the complexities of freedom and desire. Restless and spurred by her sisters to reveal Eros’s true nature, she breaks her trust and forces a reckoning that tests them both—and transforms the very heavens.
Told in bold and sparkling prose, The Palace of Eros transports us to a magical world imbued by divine forces as well as everyday realities, where palaces glitter with magic even as ordinary people fight for freedom in a society that fears the unknown.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Highlights
~nonbinary Eros
~what would a queen do? do that
~All Men Are All BadTM
~Aphrodite = Mom of the Millennium (mostly)
~no laurel trees anywhere
This is going to be a weird review, because I think Palace of Eros is objectively good in many ways, and definitely deserves four stars – I really enjoyed reading it. But I also kinda hate it. That being said, I know that most people who enjoy feminist mythology retellings are not going to be bothered at all by the bits that drove me up the wall, SO. If you want to read something like Circe, but queer and with even more beautiful prose? Then I think you’ll adore this book.
Take a big pinch of salt with this review, okay? The problem is mostly that I don’t get along with books like this – I shouldn’t have requested it and that’s on me. My dislike doesn’t at ALL mean that you shouldn’t pick it up. Bear that in mind!
*
I’m quite torn over Palace of Eros – it’s not what I wanted, but it’s beautiful. It does a number of things I can’t stand, but some of those things are issues of taste and don’t make the book objectively bad. I highlighted so many passages of absolutely stunning prose, even as I rolled my eyes at quite a bit of the messaging.
Thus – torn.
Palace of Eros leaves the beaten track of the usual feminist mythology retellings by making Psyche and Eros queer, even as the template of the story is very reminiscent of Madeline Miller’s Circe and its ilk. For the most part, the writing also echoes Miller’s; sensual but accessible, although I would say that Robertis’ is grander and elevated and just generally better. But in tone? Palace of Eros is very reminiscent of Circe and its ilk, and if you love one, you’re very likely to enjoy the other.
the hand against my hair was honey on a thirsty tongue. The glint and shudder of fish in a stream. Silk rippling through sunlight. I was sunlight, in the presence of her hand. I had not known, before, that this was possible, that a body could be transmuted into light by another person’s touch. I gleamed, I was lost, I was vast inside. Some part of me must have known even then.
That does mean that Palace of Eros falls into the same weird traps so many of these retellings do: there’s no female solidarity anywhere, despite the ostensible ‘beauty is a weapon of the patriarchy’ moral; all men are wholly evil, without exception (don’t @ me about Hephaestus, he’s on the page for all of two sentences); and in trying to retell the myth, a lot of the worldbuilding gets broken.
Brief plot summary for context: Psyche is so pretty that every man becomes obsessed with her, to the point that they stop worshipping Aphrodite and just stare at Psyche instead. Obviously Aphrodite is not happy about this. A prophecy is made that Psyche will marry a monster; to appease Aphrodite, Psyche is tied to a rock and left for said monster to come claim her. Instead, Eros, Aphrodite’s nonbinary daughter and goddess of desire, swoops in to carry her away, and they fall in love despite only meeting in the dark every night. If you know the myth, you know the general outline of how things go from there; if you don’t, that’s more than you need to know going into the book.
Now let’s take my three big critiques point by point.
No female solidarity: the best relationship we see in the book is Aphrodite and Eros’, and frankly, there are some big, glaring problems between them that aren’t even acknowledged, never mind addressed. Psyche’s mother is supposedly lovely, but after Psyche is ‘sacrificed’ Psyche never sees her again. Psyche’s sisters, on the other hand, are spiteful and vicious – and the relationship between them and Psyche is really the only non-romantic relationship we get to see Psyche in. The gods are no better; all the goddesses of the Greek pantheon are shown as isolated and cut off from each other. The lack of women having friends, or any other kind of relationships with each other, is just weird in the context of the women must support each other message that the book pushes quite strongly towards the end.
All men suck: Zeus is unremittingly terrible, of course – although I admit that, while common, that’s a take on Zeus I find very boring – but the book literally starts with CROWDS of men watching Psyche all day every day, being disgusting because they’re obsessed with her beauty. Hephaestus is held up as a Good Guy, but he’s so briefly on-page that I wouldn’t blame you for missing him, and no other male gods are mentioned in any other context than their histories of rape. Some don’t even appear in the story, but we still get long paragraphs on how they raped this person or that person, just so we don’t forget that all men are evil without nuance or remorse, and I cannot believe I keep getting shoved into the position of yelling But Not All Men when that is the last thing I want to be doing. And yet, here I am, once again pointing out that having all your men be evil isn’t really any different to making all your women into sex-obsessed harlots breasting boobily down the stairs – neither take is good writing. It’s not even an INTERESTING kind of evil! I don’t care about the ethics of it, I care that it’s fucking boring to be hit over the head with this again and again. There are men who don’t rape! I can’t believe I have to say that! And yes, lots of the Greek gods were horrible rapists – but people still worshipped them, so clearly their characterisation was complicated, back in the day? As in, they did bad AND good/helpful things? Could we have some of that, please? I am dying for some complexity, some nuance, some three-dimensional characterisation of male characters instead of these constant caricatures. Authors, you are undermining your own messaging by only writing these simplistic straw men.
Ffs.
Broken worldbuilding: For a start, the prophecy – that Psyche must marry a monster – is never explained. We never ponder whether Eros is the monster, and if so, what it is that makes her monstrous; and if the prophecy WASN’T referring to Eros then hi, wtf? Robertis tries to explore how Eros being nonbinary affects her role as goddess of desire, what that means ABOUT desire as a concept and a force…and doesn’t come to any conclusions. And not in the ‘it’s up to the reader to decide’ kind of way. A point is made that desire existed before Eros was born…this is somehow important…but again, nothing comes of it. There’s no explanation for why the goddesses are submissive to and abused by the gods, when they’re, you know, goddesses with incredible powers, unlike defenseless mortal women. Robertis tries to, or starts to, explain how the gods’ powers work, how they’re connected to the universe, that there’s some sort of ‘web’ – and then drops it, or maybe fails, and it just. What. The gods are freaked out because Eros blurs the lines between male and female, but why the fuck does that matter? Apollo finds it terrifying: WHY? Who knows. Zeus says he never gave Eros her power, but NO ONE’s powers came from him, so, what???
“She’s using more than she was granted. It’s an aberration. She has no right to claim the territory of both goddess and god.”
…
“I’ll strip her of her powers for this!”
How are you going to do that, Zeus? IS that a thing you can do? I doubt it. (But since it’s mentioned, why isn’t it explored?) ‘more than she was granted’ SHE WAS MADE THIS WAY. By whatever force creates gods. What are you on? This is so random and weird and you’re implying things about how the gods work that you don’t explain or follow up on. ARGH.
But most egregiously, View Spoiler »
The worldbuilding does not usually rock in the feminist mythological retellings of the post-Circe era, but I’m especially pissed off because, instead of staying away from the difficult questions posed by the worldbuilding, Robertis pointed out all these questions and issues and then failed to resolve them or do anything with them. That’s honestly kind of worse, for me as a reader, than if you’d just stayed away from the Big Questions like what are the gods even, how do their powers work, etc. You didn’t need to go there! And you shouldn’t go there if you’re going to abandon me there! It was like being teased, over and over, with the possibility of something immensely cool and interesting and unique…only to flat-line every time.
Also, View Spoiler »
HOWEVER.
None of this alters the fact that Palace of Eros is genuinely exquisite. Robertis’ prose is breathtaking, especially in the immersive, emotional stream of consciousness moments–
On some days, I felt so peeled open by the intensity of my nights, so raw and bared to the world, that it felt as though my very soul entered those threads and soared through them, moved through color after color. So much color in this place, no dyes spared. The colors saturated me; lacerated me. As if my skin were dissolved by what we did in the night and there were no more barriers between my pure sensation and the colors of the world. The world spilled in, I could not filter it. A single red or royal purple could whip my soul awake even though sometimes the intensity made me weep–and even this was a great luxury, to make whatever sound my body wanted, to sob, wail, whisper, or croon in response to color. I did not have to stay composed for the sake of others. Or to seem sane. What did it mean, anyway, to be sane? To shut up and be small? I didn’t want it and I didn’t have to do it
And where most of the Circe-and-co retellings are about making women gentler and giving them power (usually power as recognised by the patriarchy), Palace of Eros is instead focused on Psyche’s growth into confidence and her embracing her sexuality – in the sense of discovering that she is herself a sexual creature, and learning to love that instead of being ashamed of it. I will freely admit I wanted a lot more from this story – it’s 2024, a cis woman’s sexual awakening just doesn’t feel that revolutionary or interesting – but it at least this is an approach I haven’t seen before. It was something new(-to-me)! That’s not nothing, and neither is the intense, deliberate sex positivity, which is probably going to make some readers a little uncomfortable, but is, genuinely, absolutely stunning. Robertis writes sex as earthy but divine, simultaneously poetic and frank, open and honest in a way I don’t come across often. And so joyful! I don’t feel qualified to really deeply analyse sex scenes, but I do wish baby!Sia had had Palace of Eros to read, as a counter to all the repressive AFAB sexuality crap that’s so common now and was even worse when I was a kid.
Then again, Psyche repeatedly masturbates with a tree, so. *throws hands in the air*
She clutches the tree and humps it until she orgasms. Repeatedly. I wish I was making that up.
I was pretty pleased that for once, Aphrodite actually got to be a character instead of a stereotype. Too often she doesn’t, but Robertis lets her be reasonably complicated and protective of her kid and able to manipulate Zeus (to a degree) while also having a temper and bouts of pettiness. I didn’t think the pettiness was adequately explained – for example, the big deal in the Psyche and Eros myth are the three trials Aphrodite sets for Psyche, right? Here, it’s done out of spite, even though by that time, Aphrodite is aware that Eros loves this mortal. That seemed to contradict all of the characterisation re Aphrodite and Eros having this incredibly important and wonderful relationship, and I wish Robertis had given Aphrodite another motive, or else laid the groundwork for there being problems between Aphrodite and Eros. Loving parents don’t try to kill the person their kid loves, you know, that’s a whole thing. But even so, at least Aphrodite got to be written three-dimensionally for once. Points for that.
I can’t help wishing that Robertis had combined the ‘beauty is a weapon of the patriarchy’ message with the fact that, you know, Aphrodite being the goddess of beauty. I kind of can’t believe that opportunity was missed. I was SURE something was going to be done, or at least SAID, about that! But alas, no.
What else did I like? Eros. And Psyche. As people and as characters, I really loved them both. Eros has metaphorical blood on her hands; she’s done terrible things, like most (all?) of the gods, and needs to face up to that, as well as to the enormous power imbalance in her and Psyche’s relationship – but she’s still extremely loving, adoring, funny and gentle and eternally accepting of everything Psyche wants and is and wants to become. Whereas watching Psyche discover how beautiful beauty can be, how intoxicating and empowering having freedom and safety are, how good a body can feel, what it’s like to be adored – no, it wasn’t groundbreaking, but it was wonderful, and I’m not over the tree thing, but I still loved how Robertis writes about sex and sexual thoughts and feelings. It’s poignant and accurate and beautiful enough that even my sex-repulsed self was enraptured! THAT DOESN’T HAPPEN VERY OFTEN!
I do wish we’d gotten more of Eros; I wish we’d actually explored, instead of just touched on, how her shapeshifting/gender-fluidity (if that’s the correct term, which I’m not 100% sure of, but then I do think Robertis’ point is that Eros is beyond labels) ties into the nature of desire, what it says about power, the implications for the lines between and power structures of the gods… There was so much you could do with that, and there was pretty little of it, in the end. The focus was much more on how Eros felt she had to hide her shifting because Zeus forbid it – and even THEN, View Spoiler » Most of Eros’ own feelings about all of it were told to us rather than shown – that her POV was in third-person for some reason while Psyche’s was in first- didn’t really help – and overall? It was kind of a letdown, for me personally, after being SO EXCITED to get a nonbinary Eros (which is how I conceptulise Eros in the first place). I didn’t want an Issues book, and Palace of Eros isn’t quite one…but it edged quite close to the line. Much closer than I wanted.
To be whole, to express herself as she saw fit when she saw fit and allow her body its own song, not only for sex, but at other times too, without having to warp herself into a fully male shape or stay in the mold of female, for though she relished each of those forms, neither was the whole of her; she was both of these, she spanned the realms, she held it all. Between female and male, within them and beyond them, lay more than had been given name and more than Zeus himself wanted to see manifest in the world. Play and joy and searching. Ease and art and fluid truth. Body as lake. Body as sky. Body as wind and flow. The unscripted dance of what Eros knew could also be.
The ending was rushed. I think even people who unreservedly adore Palace of Eros will admit that. The trials Aphrodite sets for Psyche are arguably the biggest deal of the myth, but here they’re quick and not really given any importance, especially not to the narrative. One of them doesn’t even happen on-page! Which, come on. I get that the trials are not the part of the story Robertis cares about, but then either don’t include them at all, or choose another myth, or write something that’s not a retelling/not such a close retelling. Practically hand-waving them was not the answer. And as I said earlier, I hated the way Aphrodite went about them, felt about them, her motive and intention for them.
Did I love Psyche’s arc, and where it ended? Yes. I love this Psyche, and I love where she ends up. View Spoiler » But the happy ending is told to us, not shown, which is part of the reason it feels so rushed, and I thought it was a huge shame not to get to see how Eros got permission for everything, not to see the wedding, not to see what Psyche gets to become.
I don’t know. I thought this book would be for me, and it wasn’t, and that’s not its fault, or Robertis’ fault. Is it what Robertis meant for it to be? I think so – I think it’s an excellent example of the feminist mythology retelling sub-genre, easily my favourite, and I already have a bunch of Robertis’ other books lined up to read. But this was definitely my last attempt at enjoying one of these retellings. I officially quit them.
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