Positives. The concept for "Lore" is fantastic; the continued ever repeating cycle of rulers dethroned by subjects and houses that hold onto cruel traditions to have a shot at killing a god... But in practice, it was a bit of a mess. I liked some of the twists, such as spoiler 

Gill being revealed to be the original Hermes (even if his motivation for taking Lore and Miles in was very unclear and he should have been reinstated as a god for his actions).

Unfortunately, this novel was too ambitious, leaving a lot of plotholes to be filled. 

Negatives. In spite of the intriguing worldbuilding, New York feels empty. If you're going to set your story in New York, write about New York! If your character has fallen in love with this city, make us fall in love with it too! 

Rather than telling a cohesive story, it felt like the characters went from side quest to side quest which made this (500+ pages!!) book loose its tension. Relevant information was also only brought up as soon as it was relevant for the plot which took away all the fun of trying to guess where the story would go next.  

Compelling read that twist and turns with ever page. Beautiful relationship development.

A dark, grim re-imagining of Greek mythology which explored the brutal side of both the godly, immortal figures and the plain old humans with their burning ambition. The plot was intriguing; watching the characters unravel thread after thread and often ending up with more questions than answers. The full cast of characters were well-developed, though frustratingly bad decision makers (someone had to advance the plot, l suppose). The ending felt slightly rushed,

and a bit jarringly sunshine-and-rainbows compared to the previous fifty-odd chapters

.

This one was captivating enough to keep me reading until the end, but it definitely had its problems. I feel like it lacked more back story and explanation for the agon and the history of the gods and why the hunters were hunting them. I wanted more about hunters killing the gods and ascending with their power and more explanation about the bloodlines. There were several moments of confusion to be had during the story.

For the most part, I enjoyed the characters, but there were also a lot of moments of "ugh, really?" Lore seemed strong and capable through most of the story, but also had her fair share of unlikable attributes. And, there was just no chemistry between the "romantiship" (yes, I'm making it a word) characters. The feelings felt forced, like, "oh, this is a fantasy ya, we need a little romance."

I also wish there had been more to the plot and the hunt itself. This story could have been a duology so we could have gotten the back story we needed, along with the plot we were promised. Though, I enjoyed the gore and the shocking moments, I felt like there wasn't enough story flow, and there were too many predictable and eye rolling moments.

The ending was pretty lack luster as well. It felt like someone said, "oh no, if we don't wrap this up now, we'll need another book," and then decided to be done with it. We had almost 500 pages in this thing, and had like one chapter for "resolution" which left a few issues unresolved and unexplained. 

I just wanted, and expected, more. In the moment, Lore kept my interest, but now that I finished it, I feel disappointed. The excitement and hype while reading was fleeting and I'm left with missing what drew me in.