Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the audio arc!

3.5 stars, rounded down

This book was pretty decent. Some of the other reviews mention that all of the characters felt very similar, and I can see how this could be true. If you’re interested in this book, I would recommend the audio book for this reason. Some of the character narrative choices were quite odd, though, and seemed to have really no importance to the overall story. Despite this, I enjoyed hearing some different point of views throughout. The writing read / spoke well, and seemed to go pretty smoothly. There was much detail and I thought that the choice of topic and character focus was interesting, as I haven’t read many books focusing on Phaedra.
This book definitely could have been better, though. The different characters often did not make sense to be placed where they were (narrative / point of view wise), and some side stories felt very unnecessary and incomplete. I found this especially an issue with Medea’s side story that the author placed within the novel. There wasn’t enough room to attempt to flush out another character in this book, and it would have benefitted the author to take the room that the side stories took up to broaden and better explain Phaedra’s character and her situation. My main issue with this novel overall is related to this. There were too many ideas and not enough room for them to breathe in, which made it a bit chaotic when the POVs switched so frequently. The book should have been longer considering the amount that was going on in the different character narrations. The last chapter was a very weak ending, as well.
Overall, this was an okay listen, and I’d recommend the audiobook if you’re interested in reading. I don’t think you’d be missing much if you skipped out on this retelling, though.

This was an interesting retelling. I think that interpretation would be a better word.
The audiobook truly was a delight and I enjoyed the night court immensely.
I have to say though there was from and out 33 percent to 66 percent of this one felt a little bit like padding. The word r*pe is obviously used a hell of a lot. I have to say for me it brought up some tough memories and I took a break at a point because I was kinda spiraling into some harsh remembering. I feel like we did not get enough Phaedra in this thought or at least not as much as I kinda thought I would. I enjoyed this more than some of the other recent Greek retellings we have been getting. I felt like we saw most characters as if through a crack in the door or as if we really were trying to gather their depths. I felt like it needed more decisive characterizations. This one should have some major CW I think.
I saw some complaining about the characters behaving in a way that maybe the gods were more of a political tool and something akin to a post religious society. It was a strange interpretation though. I’m not quite sure

I'm absolutely loving the resurgence of Greek Mythology in modern literature, especially because so many of these new books give voices to the women mistreated in the original stories. Phaedra is a beautiful example of that, With alternating perspectives of Phaedra, her cousin Medea, as well as the women who are their maids and closest confidants, we are shown a broader more realistic vision of what life in Athens and all of Greece could have been like for anyone who wasn't a favored male descendant of the Gods.

The audiobook version of this book is especially well done with a great variety of narrators who manage to convey the story and language very authentically. I was drawn in immediately.

2.75⭐️ rounded up
I was really excited to dive into the story of Phaedra as her myth is lesser known. This ended up being a very middle-of-the-road book for me. The writing was easily accessible, if not a bit modern at times. I can see how the author was trying to go for lyrical writing like Madeline Miller and Jennifer Saint, but it fell a bit flat.
While I enjoyed learning Phaedra’s story and plight through various POVs, at times, it became difficult to determine which POV I was listening to. I was also disappointed in the lack of world-building; I think a more developed world would have made the story that much better. The ending was what really saved the rest of the book, the trial was probably the most exciting part, and that was done well.

*thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review*

I really enjoyed this story. Thought all the different points of view would be a distraction but that was not the case. I am one who enjoys stories of the Greek Gods and this was no exception. I will definitely recommend.

A beautiful re-telling of a Greek myth, starring Phaedra, the younger sister of Ariadne, who helped Theseus through the labyrinth of Crete. This story places much blame on Theseus and the people of Athens. Medea also has a supporting role.
After Theseus slays the minotaur (who's name is Minos and is the legitimate, albeit, disformed child of King Minos and Queen Pasiphae), he absconds with Ariadne. He comes back to Crete claiming she is now the bride of Dionysus, and he's going to need another bride in return. Phaedra is offered up and this is where the story truly begins.
Athens is terrible and basically a hovel. People are running lawless. Theseus is a giant jerk and his son, Hippolytus, is even worse. He claims that since he worships Artemis, he will remain virginal. He winds up raping Phaedra, impregnating her and is put on trial. The story, like most Greek myths, ends tragically.
There are several narrators bringing the story to life and it is quite enjoyable to listen to.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for this audio e-arc.*

Thank you #Netgalley & Dreamscape Media for the audio e-arc of #Phaedra. This was a new type of read for me. I can't say how much I really know about Greek mythology. It is not much, yet, I am so intrigued by the stories. This one was no different and really kept my interest!

Phaedra is a princess of Crete who was brought to Athens to marry the new king, Theseus. Unfortunately, she was not treated in the way a queen should be treated. In fact, her husband wanted nothing to do with her. When he goes away for a time, his son was left in charge and told to take care of her. This is when her crappy life takes a turn for the worse. I came into the story blind, so I will leave off here so as not to spoil anything for anyone who also has no idea of this tale.

I really enjoyed the voices of the narrators. I also applaud the feminist views.
What stood out to me was the night chorus saying : "If they are the heros, does that make us the heroines? We keep going. We persevere. We ask for nothing and get even less. Where are our stories?" So often women get muted or ignored, even to this day. Demanding a voice and standing up for ourselves is so imperative. The night chorus was a group of women chanting together & sharing thoughts in the night all at once. I thought it was a pretty cool concept. The fact you could hear them on the audio was key. You will not that same effect reading it in a book.
I like that this book highlighted a lesser known Greek story. Phaedra was young and naive but I really enjoyed her strength, her passion for the truth, and to have a voice be heard among pigheaded men. I am intrigued enough by this story that I want to go find out more; maybe do some research into how the original stories were told, learn how it was different.

Just so readers are aware, there is so much suffering and some heavy subject matters which are involved throughout the story. Rape, murder, murder of children, suicide, violence, physical and sexual assault are all mentioned to some extent and some of it was difficult to listen to for me without triggers. It was also incredibly frustrating to hear how these men acted as well, though I do understand that it was part of Greek mythology and without mention, it would have drastically taken away from the book. The details really did create feelings. My heart goes out to those women and girls.

I did not like all the characters, there may have been too many! My favorite was Phaedra and I really thought Trypho was great as well, I wasn't sure about him at first. There were some narrators and characters that I didn't think were necessary. I am glad I had the audio version for this reason as well, because I feel like I could have been more lost reading them rather than hearing them with a voice. The voices helped me keep a clearer picture of who was who. Overall the narrators all did fantastic jobs! I really think they brought so much to the story!

** I received a free early audio release in exchange for my honest review. **

I generally love mythology re-tellings, particularly those that center the often lost voices of the women, so I was very excited about this one. Unfortunately, it ended up being quite a disappointment.

The story switches from character to character, only the women, but none of them were fully developed. As a result, it felt uncentered and incomplete. The writing felt underdeveloped, which is fine except that it really took away from the experience because it was much more noticeable at the end than the beginning. It also slowed the pacing of the story.

I read this one on both audiobook and physical copy. The audiobook turned out to be more enjoyable for me, mostly because having different voices reading helped distinguish between characters that otherwise lacked that clarity of distinction in this work.

There are a number of incredible mythology retellings out there, but I'm sorry to say that I can't claim this to be one of my favorites.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the opportunity to review this book ahead of publication. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

I was provided an audio arc of this book via Netgalley, all opinions are my own. Thank you to Dreamscape Media for providing me the opportunity to review this book.

I really enjoyed the full cast narration of this audiobook. It worked very well with multi-POV narration of the story. Having multiple narrators made it easy to let the reader know who was speaking because there was a different voice for each speaker. I do feel that having so many POV's it took away from the focus of Phaedra's story. The author did do a good job linking all of the POVs together in the end, but I don't know that they were all necessary. I thought the addition of the Night Chorus made alot of sense, and added to the storyline but the other POVs didn't really add much to Phaedra's story.

As you can tell by the title this follow's Phaedra, a lesser know female character in Greek mythology. She is daughter of Mino and Pasiphae, sister to Ariadne and the Minotaur. Phaedra is portrayed as naïve and as the youngest she is often cast aside and treated poorly. She is faithful to the gods and trusts that they will protect her from harm so long as she pays the proper tributes and prayers. This is especially important as she enters into a political marriage with Theseus. Upon her arrival in Athens, she quickly realizes that Theseus wants nothing to do with his young bride, but his son Hippolytus while pledged to Artemis is always watching her. As is common in mythology, the men rule and commit atrocities without much consequence, but Theseus wants to bring democracy to Athens, so when he returns to find his wife very pregnant and accusing his son of brutally raping her, he must go through with a trial.

While the trial proceeds, the women of Athens are paying the price of Phaedra speaking out against Hippolytus and his attack. They too are suffering in silence at the hands of the same men. Once the trial is decided, Phaedra decides to take back her own power as she learns the even if the court rules in her favor, the punishment will not fit the crime.

If you are fan of the feminist retellings that are very popular right now, this was a good read. This did a good job emphasizing how women are often blamed for the sins of men or treated as if they exist purely to serve man's more carnal needs. I feel like that is very accurate for the timeframe when these myths are supposed to be based. This even touches on faith and loss of faith. I thought that was very well done. Phaedra's faith in the gods was steadfast, until her gods failed her. I think that is a very relatable concept whether you are religious person or not. Faith in humanity, religion, or people you trust is tested constantly. Anyone who has been seriously let down can empathize with Phaedra. I enjoyed this retelling of Phaedra's story and look forward to reading more from the author in the future.

Trigger warnings for sexual assault, rape, suicide, physical abuse, murder, mental abuse. This is a rough book to get through, even if you don't have triggers.

Lets get this over with.

-The dialogue was too modern.
-The writing felt juvenile. Like it was written for a young audience.
-Too many perspectives that all felt the same.
-A dumbed down version of the myth.
-No world building.
-Weak main character.
-Lacked passion and yet was also overly dramatic.
There's more but I'm done with this book.

Just read the Wikipedia description of Phaedra. Its better than this.
I liked the idea of this book, but it didn't work for me.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Phaedra is a new to me story, this year I wanted to read more mythology and retellings so when I saw this one and the synopsis I jumped on the opportunity. I really enjoyed this story, started one afternoon and finished the next day. The audio was perfection with the cast of characters… easy to follow. The story was powerful and heartbreaking making me want to do a deep dive into Phaedra as well as some of the others mentioned! I’m new to Greek myths and Laura Shepperson wrote a debut that makes me want to continue on my journey of reading.

Wow, this is a FANTASTIC audio! I loved all the different perspective, especially The Night Chorus chapters! The multiple voices overlapping one another, PHENOMENAL! Gave the coolest sound when listening to it. I felt all the feels.

As far as the story goes, I don't know too much about all the different people in Greek Mythology so I went into this with a pretty fresh POV. I enjoyed it. There's a lot more challenging content than I would've liked but looking at it objectively, that's understandable for the time period of ancient Greece. Women were not respected....men did do whatever they wanted & didn't have to answer for it (hmm...wonder what has changed?). With that being said, I don't fault the story or the author for the content. But because of the way the women were treated, it did frustrate me to no end & at times, made it challenging for me to listen to.

My recommendation to anyone would be to listen via audio! The narration/cast was fantastic!

I am a huge fan of all the retellings of Greek myths from the women’s perspective and love seeing more of these being published. Though this wasn’t one of the best ones I’ve read - it could have used a little more world building and deep diving into the characters- I thought this book was worth reading and it did hold my attention all the way through.


The biggest thing I noticed/felt about it was that, as with most of the Greek myths, there is a stark brutality in how women are treated that is so heart wrenching and I appreciate that not being shied away from or glossed over - but this retelling doesn’t have quite as much of the emotional depth as other recent retellings and without building that emotional connection to the characters the story isn’t as compelling and makes the brutality feel more just for shock value, which I don’t appreciate.

I could have lived without some of the extra perspectives, they were ok but kind of pulled me out of the story because some of them were just a time or two and it would take me a minute to sort out who they were again. The way Medea’s perspective in particular was written felt a little superfluous and distracting, I would have preferred to just have their interactions from Phaedra’s perspective.

The audiobook is great, I really enjoyed the narration. The different narrators all did a great job with their characters and omg the night chorus was so creepy/harrowing - really well done!

I liked some aspects of this book, but I wasn't in love with it. I liked what it did in comparing the roles and expectations of men vs women during the time. I thought it did a beautiful job of highlighting the suffering and injustice that women face (and sometimes still face?) at the hands of men. I LOVED the scene in which Theseus asks Phaedra something to the effect of, "So you're willing to ruin my son's entire life just because of a few minutes of suffering at his hands?" It rang very true to the argument that many men still make about "ruining the lives" of young men after they have assaulted a woman.

That being said, there was a lot I didn't like about it. I felt like there were TOO many characters, and the connection was lost in the crowd. I didn't feel attached emotionally to any of the characters, which is an Achilles heel for a book and me. I didn't like the handling of Ariadne's story, which felt like the author trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. I felt the same way about the Minotaur's story. She didn't fully explain what was meant to have happened to create him - Was it the traditional myth? (the characters seem to say no), was it a genetic mutation? (Are we to believe that a genetic mutation lead to a child with bull horns). All in all, there just wasn't enough development for me. There were things I loved, but the characters and the world building fell flat.

Received a copy for review.
I have always been drawn to the Greek myths. The differences in this retelling were intriguing. However, there are so many Greek myths that tell this story that turning this one was unnecessary. If the point was to discuss sexual assault and how women suffer from the machinations of men, there were plenty of others to choose from.
My biggest issue with this version is the number of POVs. There were several that seemed unnecessary. If the narrators hadn’t identified themselves at the start of the chapter, I wouldn’t have been able to pick the stories apart.

The performances in this audio book were all great. All the narrators were fantastic. Some of the pronunciations of Greek names (I.e Crete, Poseidon, Dionysus) were strange to me, but I could be the one pronouncing them incorrectly. I don't think I would have finished the book if it weren't for the amazing performances by the narrators. For.a debut author, I think this is a decent start. But that being said, the market right now is flooded with so many amazing greek mythology retellings, that this one just didn't stick with me like some of the other retellings I have read over the past few years. In all honesty, I would probably give this book a 2.5 stars if good reads allowed, but I will be generous and round up to 3 stars.

I linked my Goodreads review on the kindle edition because the audiobook is not available on Goodreads at this time. When it becomes available I will delete my kindle review and enter it on the audiobook

This book was tough for me. I was never quite bored or annoyed enough to stop, but I felt sort of disappointed through the whole read. While I stay primed to hate an abusive male character (or gaggle of them, in this case) and rage against the patriarchy, somehow the characters in this story were so poorly crafted that I could not bring myself to care what any of them did.

I think the first major flaw is that there is so little world building or atmosphere. All we really know is that Athens is dirty, there are olive trees probably, and all the men are rapists who the women live in fear of. The palace and especially the world outside of it are a blank canvas providing no depth to the story.

It would stand to reason then that the story must be very character-focused. However, because there are so many POVs, no character ever becomes truly developed. Some of the POV characters only get one chapter, and rather than supporting Phaedra's narrative, they kind of scatter it. While the audiobook narrators themselves sound different, the POVs are all written in first person and the voices of the characters are nearly indistinguishable.

The writing itself was average if a bit bland, and there were enough anachronistic moments and dull dialogue to occasionally pull me out of the story.

Finally, the last 10% of the book after the events of the trial felt pretty pointless, especially the final chapter which felt so irrelevant as to detract from the impact of Phaedra's fate.

The saving graces of this story for me were Phaedra's twofold revenge and the eerie and interesting chorus peppered through the story.

What I'd rather read is a book where Hippolytus actually gets sent to live with the Amazons and gets his shit absolutely wrecked when he tries any of this bullshit on them. A girl can fantasize, right?

I'm bummed I didn't like this book more, but the narrators did a great job.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this audiobook ARC in exchange for my honest review.

A wonderful novel of myth, feminism, and a great re-imagining of myths that we know little of. I loved this one, and the narration was superb.

4ish stars

I usually enjoy a good retelling of a story from Greek mythology, and this one was no exception. There were some examples of dialogue or other word choices in the narrative that maybe weren’t quite in keeping with the time and setting of the text, but it wasn’t enough to deter me from reading or to prevent me from enjoying the narrative. I had different hopes for how the ending would turn out, but I do understand that the writer was trying to work within the limitations of the existing myths and traditions. I liked the various characters’ perspectives and appreciated the exploration of serious issues (rape, misogyny, patriarchy, etc.) within the myths. Overall, I enjoyed this novel.

Thank you to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for this arc!

Phaedra is a retelling of a Greek mythology, but with a focus on the role of women in Ancient Greece. I wasn't familiar with Phaedra's story so this was a good introduction to one of multiple versions of her life. The novel also dives into her roles in Crete vs. Athens and her relationships with her family, Theseus, Hippolytus, and the other men and women around her.

Other reviewers have commented on how the multiple POVs detracted from the story and confuses the reader, not to mention that different POVs would sound the same. I received the audiobook of the arc and I think the different narrators helped to flesh out the story than if I had just read the ebook. Because otherwise I doubt that I'd be able to tell the narrators apart either. Some narratives weren't necessary imo. For example, I'm not sure why there was a chapter from the bull jumper's POV when it could've used Phaedra's POV.

The story picks up when Phaedra travels from Crete to Athens to marry Theseus. I liked how descriptions of the palace in Athens was compared against the palace in Crete. The trial in the latter half of the book was actually really interesting to read. That was the strongest part imo.

I think this novel was trying to do a lot with the multiple POVs. If the POVs had been kept to a minimum and each narrative that wasn't Phaedra had been fleshed out more, then it would've been a 4 star read for me. I found myself not paying attention when the narrative would jump to other characters who were really minor and not directly involved with the main plot other than as an observer.