Neon Gods: A Scorchingly Hot Modern Retelling of Hades and Persephone (Dark Olympus, 1)

Well, this had a lot of spice, just not the kind of spice I thought it would produce further into the book. The exhibition scene, weren't all that exhibitionish but they were spicy. The story itself dragged for me, I kept wanting them to get to the action of the story. I did like the concept of Olympus and Zeus vs Hade. Sadly, it came down to the storyline, just a little to blah for me.

The story was good, but i expected it to be more magical? More intense? With it being about the Gods. I did not expect it to be a more modern day.

Basically, a court of thorns and roses, beauty and the beast, and 50 shades of grey with a modern greek mythology retelling all rolled into one. Storyline is intriguing initially, but it hits all the classic tropes of enemies to lovers and forced proximity, etc. The writing could be better, but hey, we all know why we read this book, and it wasn't for the great storytelling.

After reading ''a touch of darkness'' I was in need of a fix of mythological horny books so I read this one..... Oh my god, I was so shy reading this in public. It is very horny, and the language used is not shy either. I wouldn't recommend this to my mom if you know what I mean.

Neon Gods is a wattpad mafia romance / erotic modern retelling of the story of Hades, lord of the Underworld, and his wife Persephone, part time Goddess of Spring, part time Queen of Hell. Their story is compelling, so much so it's been dissected and told through many different perspectives, over and over again, and it still catches our interest. In this particular take, the Olympian pantheon are no longer gods but rather... I'm still not quite sure what they are, exactly. A crime syndicate? Politicians? I settled on calling them a quirky mafia that uses greek god names as titles. Anyway: Demeter goes ahead and promises Zeus, the ringleader (king of the mafia gods?) her daughter Persephone's hand in marriage. To escape her fate, Persephone runs away from Dodona Tower, Olympus (which is not in Greece? it might be in the US? it might be it's own country? they certainly know american pop culture, which could mean literally anything) and ends up on the wrong side of town (still Olympus??????), in the realm of Hades, just on the other side of the River Styx. There she falls into the embrace of the terrifying Hades (who no one even knew was still alive, since he was busy minding his business being mayor ((??????)) of his side of town) who sees in her a chance to finally get revenge on Zeus (by.... cucking him publicly I guess? despite the fact that Persephone and Zeus were not married or even dating?). What starts as a mutually beneficial plot for survival and revenge, soon (FIVE WEEKS) becomes a strong connection they can't seem to shake. Sorry, do I seem distracted? It's because the WORLDBUILDING WAS SO DISTRACTING. Clearly it was meant to do little else beyond prop up the romantic relationship between the main characters, I get that, but then why insist on introducing all these elaborate concepts, if you clearly don't care enough to think them all the way through. Ex. None of The Thirteen major olympians (mob bosses???) have magic (Hades carries a gun) but Hermes inexplicably teleports everywhere to relay messages? In a world where every character has a smartphone and the crime syndicate has mandatory Skype meetings??????? WHAT????????? The positives: -The actual relationship between Hades and Persephone was sweet, very quintessential "grumpy x sunshine" but hey, if it ain't broke. -The sisters! Consistently cool and decent. -Well done, if mild, consensual BDSM. Once Hades dropped the whole paternalistic "I'm in control since you can't take care of yourself" thing, they got very nice and partnery with lots of mutual respect, so that was decent. -The sex scenes were fine. -Pomegranate was the safe word. The negatives: -The worldbuilding. I can't think about it without taking psychic damage, as shown above. -The dual POVs. We did not need Hades to repeat what we just read from Persephone's POV. -The constant telling over showing. -Clunky descriptions of background characters ("a latina woman" "a white man" "a black woman"- SO awkward). -The fact that there was allegedly a Big Bad in the character of Zeus but he never actually does anything in-story, besides die. The same way Hades allegedly spent 16 years plotting his revenge, which ultimately consisted of improvising on the fly at all times (and keeping a well stocked pantry). -For a book marketed as erotica, and "the steamiest thing ever" there was very little actual sex or even anticipation. -Pomegranate was the safe word. Definitely a "turn your brain off to enjoy" sort of book (which is FINE, to be clear, I just didn't find this entertaining enough for even that). Tl:dr: They should have banged more and been named literally anything else.