I enjoyed this short but powerful novel because I learned so much more about the myth of Persephone and Demeter. I adored Rachel Lyon's first book SELF-PORTRAIT WITH BOY so I knew this was going to be something special. Lyon's writing in FRUIT OF THE DEAD is a bit off-kilter and unique. Sometimes it feels like a dream, sometimes it feels like a nightmare.

She takes us on a journey through Cory, a recent high school grad whisked away on the last day as a camp counselor by a mysterious and rich dad of a kid who took a liking to her. Without a college to go to, her promises her $20k for babysitting for the summer and she finds it impossible to say no. However, her mom (who she has a strained relationship with) is kept out of the loop and without much cell service and lots of passive aggression, she begins to spiral and decides if she needs to start searching for where her daughter went.

It's a terrifying tale, with a monstrous billionaire in the center of it representing the part of the devil. It's also a tale, of course, of the undying bond of a mother and a daughter. It reads more like a long-form poem with beautiful prose and you'll find yourself getting through it pretty quickly.

At the very beginning all I could think was this is how you do a Greek mythology retelling. I really loved Cory’s character and how she end up with Rolo. I thought that was a fun twist. Super cleaver with the names as well!
With the dual POV being Cory’s mother Emer, I kind of expected to dislike her as I tend to do with Demeter’s pov in Greek mythology. I found after getting through the “daughter of…” parts, I actually enjoyed the chaos of her chapters more. Didn’t like her character but did enjoy the ride.
The end did feel very rough to me, not only in how it came across but even just how dark it got. I would have like a bigger build into to darkness, because it sort of felt forced.
Definitely enjoyed it over all. The writing was super cleaver and fast paced. 3.75⭐️
Thank you to NetGalley, Scribner and the author for this ACR.

3.5 stars
i was so ready for this slightly trippy literary coming-of-age novel to become my new brand but i wish it fully embraced the surreal aspects it was advertised to have. Lyon is a great writer and the story was engaging but I felt like it didn’t wrap up quite as I hoped

Blog:
I’ve seen some reviews from folks who entered this book clearly not knowing anything about the myth of Demeter and Persephone. I think that’s a mistake. Knowing the myth helps you know what vibes to expect from this book at least. It helps match the book properly with the readers who might enjoy it. So if you’re not already familiar, take a moment to read a quick summary. Ok. This is not a romance. This is a story of a young girl who gets abducted by the literal god of the underworld and tricked into eating something while there that will make her always have to return. It’s also the story of her mother’s desperate quest to find her.

This is a modern retelling devoid of fantasy. It takes the myth and places it in our modern world. Hades is a pharmaceutical company executive. A billionaire. He’s currently going through a legal battle to do with his very addictive pain pills. (He’s clearly an allusion to the Sackler family.) Personally, I loved the choice of a billionaire drug pusher as the stand-in for Hades.

Persephone is Cory. A just barely turned 18-year-old whose high-achieving mother wants desperately for her to go to college but who did not get in anywhere she applied. She and her mother are not getting along right now. (There are reasons for this rift beyond college that are a spoiler and are revealed later in the book.) She goes to be a camp counselor where she went to summer camp in essentially a huff. At the end of summer camp, the father of one of the children shows up to pick up the child and asks her to come to his private island to nanny the son and a daughter for a month. She has to sign an NDA. She cannot tell her mother where, exactly she is. This is the getting ripped into the underworld bit. nstead of the pomegranate seeds, what Cory is given is, naturally, the pain killing drugs. Her mother, after a bit of time and one very weird phone call, cannot shake the feeling something is wrong, and drops everything to go after her daughter. It’s kind of Taken but with a mom.

I really enjoyed the vibes of this book. It oozed danger even when nothing super insidious was happening. While things do escalate, for a lot of the book it’s not that anything is technically wrong, it just feels wrong. It’s an art form to be able to mimic that gut reaction in fiction. This was one of the stronger parts of the book. I also really enjoyed a part where different plot points came together in what one could have called a coincidence, but also could be called the gods interfering. It was astutely (and kindly) done.

However. This book chose to never use quotation marks for dialogue. Not once. This is a stream of consciousness writing technique. It’s becoming more common in modern books, although you can also see it in James Joyce, for instance. The reasons given by modern authors – like “removing the hierarchy between author and reader” – frankly make me raise my eyebrows in doubtful question. (It sounds like something a dinner party guest of Frasier’s would suggest.) It strikes me as a full-of-oneself literary technique that just forces the reader to work harder. What’s wrong with reading quickly and with easy interpretation? I found it quite distracting in this book. I had to re-read certain passages to try to figure out who said what and whether it was a thought or actually spoken out loud.

Of course the Persephone and Demeter myth is dark. It stands to reason that Hades forces himself on Persephone, and this book doesn’t shy away from that. So there are two sexual assaults. One is described as a memory. The other is described in the moment as the character is living it. There’s also a child sexual assault hinted at in flashbacks but not described in any detail. It’s more that the character is remembering how she felt when it happened than what actually happened. Finally, there’s a self-injury described.

I realize that in the myth Persephone is doomed to return to Hades for half the year forever. This can be a tricky thing to address in an updated retelling. But some aspect of what next could have been addressed. I would like to have seen just a hint of how the mother/daughter were going to try to work through this, even if they might not be successful.

Overall, this is an interesting modern retelling of the Persephone and Demeter myth. It admirably writes pharmaceutical companies as the underworld and a CEO billionaire as their god. Potential readers should be aware that this is a dark story, not a romance. It contains sexual assault. Some readers may not enjoy the complete lack of quotation marks. Recommended to readers interested in modern day retellings of mythology.

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A contemporary retelling of a Greek myth? Yes, please! Ok, so Fruit of the Dead is not O Brother Where Art Thou. For one thing, it's a retelling of Persephone and Demeter, not The Odyssey. But, on the other hand, that means women and women's voices are centered. Toss in a pharmaceutical billionaire CEO as Hades (aka the god of the underworld), and it almost made up for the lack of bluegrass music. (almost) See my book blog (linked in profile) for my full review.
Thank you to the publisher for providing a free copy via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
#bookalicious #booksinthewild #avidreader #whatimreading #bookrec #mythologyretelling

GoodReads:
Overall, this is an interesting modern retelling of the Persephone and Demeter myth. It admirably writes pharmaceutical companies as the underworld and a CEO billionaire as their god. Potential readers should be aware that this is a dark story, not a romance. It contains sexual assault. Some readers may not enjoy the complete lack of quotation marks. Recommended to readers interested in modern day retellings of mythology.
*I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.*

I love a Persephone retelling, I’ve been obsessed with her story since I was middle grade age and reading fanfics. I had such high hopes for this book but unfortunately it really missed the mark. I found myself super bored most of the time and I had to really work to get through it. Obviously the father made me feel gross and wanted to fist fight him on that boat but other then that I honestly didn’t care what was happening. I can totally see why this is super popular with some readers and I’m so glad that it has found a great audience even though it just missed the mark for me. Thank you NetGally and Scribner (my 🖤) for the ARC of this. Y’all rock!

I just requested our library purchase this book for our collection. This is everything I want in a book plus more. Rachel kept me from cleaning my house because I couldn't put this book down!

An update on Greek mythology's tale of Persephone, Demeter, and Hades, though the plot still works for those not familiar with the myth. In Lyon's version, Persephone becomes camp counselor Cory, a floundering NYC teen who didn't get into any of the colleges she applied to and doesn't know what she'll do after graduation. Goddess of grain Demeter becomes agricultural executive Emer, and Hades becomes Rolo, an affable middle-aged dad who grew deliriously wealthy manufacturing a potent new painkiller. When his kid's camp session ends, Rolo persuades Cory to come work for him on his private island ... and then refuses to let her leave, or even call her mom, but softens the blow with regular doses of his company's flagship pharmaceutical. I was curious to see how Lyon might creatively translate the ancient myth for our modern times, but ultimately found this tale of a Sackler-like man exploiting a naive teenage girl pretty bleak.

thank you to Netgalley and Scribner for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

full review to come.

I loved this book - amazing contemporary retelling of the Persephone and Demeter myth. I think this will be a really book to add to an Olympics book display!

This modern-retelling of the myth of Persephone and Demeter packs in more than just an exploration of a mother-daughter relationship. The grey area between adulthood and childhood, the ethics of business, the struggle of motherhood, addiction, gender power imbalance, sexuality, and spirituality all play key roles in this story.

Cory is 18 years old, working as a camp counselor, and aimlessly wandering through life. When the wealthy father of one of her campers asks her to nanny for him, she rashly signs an NDA and is whisked off to live on his private island. She fails to tell her plans to her mother, Emer, who quickly becomes worried for her daughter's safety. Emer sets off on a mission to find her daughter, all the while Cory is trying to find herself.

I didn't know the myth of Persephone and Demeter before reading this book (I just knew about the Persephone/Hades part, thanks dark romance), so I looked it up afterwards. It was really cool how well Lyons paid tribute to and wove the myth into this modern coming-of-age story. I thought she did a great job developing all of the characters while keeping the plot moving and the sense of urgency strong.

There were some literary choices that I didn't quite understand, such as the lack of any quotation marks during the dialogue and the stream-of-consciousness pacing. I also didn't get why Emer's POV was first person and Cory's POV was third person. Was there some symbolism regarding how Cory was lost and hadn't found herself? I don't know. I enjoyed Emer's POV more, and it probably had to do with the fact that her voice felt stronger.

I enjoyed this one more than I expected to! Thanks so much to @netgalley and @scribnerbooks for the #gifted eARC!

I'm so disappointed in this book.

Cory's character is ridiculous. The whole thing with her just going merrily along with this man she doesn't know, who won't even let her return to the camp to get her belongings? C'mon.

I hate books that don't use quotation marks for dialogue. I don't want to struggle to figure out if the person is speaking aloud, thinking, or if it's narration.

Then I got to the mother's POV, and I didn't like her at all, either.

I wasn't connecting to the writing or anything about this story.

DNF at page 50

I'm not sure how to feel about this. I liked it, I didn't love it. There were some bits of character development that verged on the humorous, but they ended up making me dislike basically everyone, haha. Now! That being said, that is not enough to make me dislike a book or regret a reading experience. I think this is a fresh take, super fun, and niche. I might not be the intended audience, but I can see younger women in their 20s eating this up (or, alternatively, a TV series would be so messy and weird and fun).

A modern-day bildungsroman of Grecian mythological proportions. The slow-building dread of this plot is second-to-none. It's an accident waiting to happen that you can't look away from. And why would you want to? Rachel Lyons' prose positively sparkles. The story is streamlined, tense, swift-moving.

I loved that Cory's narrative was juxtaposed with her mother Emer's. Cory is a traumatized, reckless, defiant girl. Emer is bewildered by her daughter, disenchanted by her career, and swiftly unravelling. Anyone who has ever been a mother or a daughter will recognize themselves somewhere throughout the course of this book. Their fraught relationship twisted my heart.

Our villain is a deeply, deliciously unsettling character who made my skin crawl from his first appearance through his last. Rolo Picazo is lecherous, controlling, manipulative, and exudes an oily, avuncular charm that makes me shudder just thinking about it. My revulsion is, in part, because he is so realistically written. Such men exist. They are not even uncommon. Hades, indeed.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS BELOW:

Knowing this story was loosely based upon the Greek legend of the goddess Persephone, I wondered what would stand in for the fateful pomegranate seed.

Granadone. A drug. How utterly brilliant and so absurdly obvious I was annoyed I didn't guess it earlier. Rolo's evasive response to Cory's query about its addictive qualities made my stomach sink.

The queen of the underworld must return.

I will stress that this one was a reimagining and not a retelling, so it definitely doesn’t require interest in mythology. It was more of a coming-of-age/ bad decisions novel on one end and mama bear on the other side. The plot moved slowly but it worked well overall. I think I’m generationally in the middle of both the characters which made it a bit harder to relate to. That didn’t stop me from audibly saying “red flag” as the 18 yo was being manipulated though.

Thank you so much to Scribner books for the ARC!

After seeing this all over my TikTok fyp, I was super excited to start reading. However, this book was not for me. I didn’t love the writing style and I also felt like FMC was too inconsistent in her characterization.

I am fascinated by Persephone and this book deepened that fascination. Lyon holds true but also adds so much to this story. This is a fever dream of a retelling and I didn't want to wake up.

This wasn’t 100% my cup of tea, but I could see a lot of people loving it. The line-level prose is evocative and beautiful, a little purple yet not overly so. All the references to the Greek myth were a joy to discover, very clever and well-done. I really enjoyed both of the POV characters as well. Cory and Emer are lifelike and realistic, and their relationship felt very true to life. As a dual character study and Greek retelling I think this is excellent, but the plot left me a bit wanting. Cory’s chapters got fairly repetitive at a certain point and weren’t very engaging, and Emer's chapters were propelled solely by coincidences and deus ex machina. I take some issue with the ending as well. I understand that to be a faithful retelling of the Hades and Persephone myth, that Cory has to return to the island again and again. But to have Rolo rape her and then the next day on the boat out to have her thinking “hmm yeah I think I’ll go back” was very bizarre and nonsensical. I had thought that the contract she signed without reading in the beginning would compel her to return once a year, but that wasn’t the case. Overall though, there’s a lot to love here and I think this is a solid retelling.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an ARC of this book for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Wow. This book absolutely blew me away. As far as Hades/Persephone retellings go, I had only read Lore Olympus (a favorite) before this, which is a romantic and more positive retelling of the ancient myth. While I definitely don't think there's anything wrong with more positive retellings, what I adored about this one was that it did not shy away from the darker aspects of the Hades/Persephone myth and showed how problematic that kind of power dynamic is.

The relationship between Cory and Rolo is NOT romanticized, which is refreshing due to the increasing popularity of age gap "romances." Despite this, the relationship between Cory and Rolo is not needlessly graphic, relying more on Cory's discomfort and Rolo's sickening attention to her to show his predatory intentions.

Cory is also not shown as a helpless, despite certainly being a victim. She is wild, reckless, and curious about the world. She is a quintessential teen in some ways, wanting to rebel against her mother, find her place in the world, and seek new highs. I think her quintessential teen-ness adds to this story rather than takes away from it, as other readers have suggested. It makes the story feel all the more real.

And then we get to Emer's perspective. Her protectiveness of Cory and sheer willpower to save her daughter, whatever it takes, was both admirable and like watching a train crash off the rails. I adored her fierceness and the way that her calm, collected persona fell away as she got more desperate to reach her daughter. I also found the writing in her sections SO beautiful.

The ending of this novel was *chef's kiss* PERFECT. It beautifully paid homage to the ancient myth (as did so many other moments in the story), while keeping the novel fully embedded in its dreary, modern setting. It brought the themes of addiction, medical ethics, medical racism, motherhood back to the readers' mind as something to ponder over later.

If I had one complaint about this book, it would be the one that other readers have pointed out: the way the dialogue was formatted. The lack of quotation marks did make me have to re-read certain scenes to see who was speaking, and I did grow frustrated with this throughout the book. However, there are too many good things for me to say to let this frustration lower my rating.

As stated previously, though the book is not needlessly graphic, readers should be aware of the following trigger warnings: sexual assault, grooming, drug addiction, alcoholism, and self-harm.

Publication Date: 5 March 2024

Look I get that I have to suspend my disbelief to read books, but I could not deal with this.

I absolutely do not understand why Cory went with the Hades character. Maybe I'm too old to empathize with an 18 year old being SO BORED that she would willingly put herself in danger (her own thinking as she got in the car with the strange man). I absolutely could not deal with her any more when she started an internal monologue about how corn syrup was poisoning us all or whatever she was on about while eating waffles and drinking a milkshake.

Let's be honest though, this book's biggest flaw was probably that they said the Hades character was ugly. And rude to his kids. He kind of immediately starts making fun of his 6 year old and I don't know why Cory didn't immediately hate him for that.

I listened to the audiobook, but read some other reviews and found out there's some weird punctuation with the dialogue, so that's something to consider if you are reading this and still want to give it a try.

*DNF @10%*

This book didn’t work for me.

The MMC has inconsistent behavior so I can’t imagine how difficult it was for the very young FMC to adapt or fully understand the situation.

The dual POV was also confusing and I’m not sure how much it added to this already confusing story.

The massive focus on food ingredients in the beginning was disappointing and came across as fat-shaming