ARC Review: Bull

Author: David Elliott

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Edition: eARC courtesy of Netgalley

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Release Date: March 28th, 2017

Rating: 4 Stars

I received an eARC of this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

Bull is a retelling of the classic myth Theseus vs the Minotaur done completely in verse and written for a modern audience. I've even seen it compared to Hamilton in this regard, which I disagree with. This novel does serve to get the reader to sympathize with the Minotaur and also fills in some gaps that the original myth just stepped over quickly.

The beginning of this novel is incredibly strong, and I was swept in quickly to the action. The voice of Poseidon was early on one of my favorites, but about two thirds of the way through I got bored of him. He narrated everything and I wish more had been left for the other characters to tell since their perspectives might have been more interesting in that way. I also think about two thirds of the way through is when the plot sort of bottomed out. The characters were interesting but didn't get any deeper, the story moved too quickly for me to really grasp everything that was happening, and the ending came as a disappointing rush where some of the action is erased too quickly.

The verse, however, is fantastic the whole way through. It's done incredibly well and every character has a unique way of "speaking" through the verse. The author also includes a little guide to how he picked how each character spoke and what those forms of poetry are, which is interesting in its own right.

TL;DR?

Some people will really enjoy this retelling, though I found the last third to be weak in everything but the verse, which stayed strong throughout.

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