Neon Gods by Katee Robert

|Synopsis|

Society darling Persephone Dimitriou plans to flee the ultra-modern city of Olympus and start over far from the backstabbing politics of the Thirteen Houses. But all that’s ripped away when her mother ambushes her with an engagement to Zeus, the dangerous power behind their glittering city’s dark facade.

With no options left, Persephone flees to the forbidden undercity and makes a devil’s bargain with a man she once believed a myth… a man who awakens her to a world she never knew existed.

Hades has spent his life in the shadows, and he has no intention of stepping into the light. But when he finds that Persephone can offer a little slice of the revenge he’s spent years craving, it’s all the excuse he needs to help her—for a price. Yet every breathless night spent tangled together has given Hades a taste for Persephone, and he’ll go to war with Olympus itself to keep her close…

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|Review|

I am honestly really sad I didn’t like this one. I wanted to DNF but was slightly curious with how it was going to end so I did push through. Slightly wish I hadn’t because it was very… cute-sy.

Neon Gods starts off fast, too fast. We’re immediately plopped into this world with the drama starting without any real world building. Couldn’t tell you anything about new world Olympus and it’s upper city vs the lower city. There were a ton of real world references in it like Berkeley, CA but no frame of reference as to where we were compared to the rest of the world. Apparently these Gods/Goddesses are either voted in or are legacies, but it wasn’t until the end of the book that I realized they were truly mortal. Kinda lame.

The writing left a lot to be desired. I would be reading along and would suddenly be taken out of the story by weird phrases or sentence compilations. It seemed like words were missing or it was just straight worded poorly. There were also just a ton of phrases used that felt silly? They just didn’t quite fit and it felt like they were just thrown into make the book seem more modern.

As for the story itself felt like a mix of A Touch of Darkness and a watered down 50 Shades of Grey. The characters even felt like Ana and Christian at times. I also thought I was getting a sexy kink Persephone and Hades. There was no actual kink unless you’re an exhibitionist. All talk, no kink. 50 Shades actually had more kink. Instead we get very vanilla sex that was pretty well written though. There was never any repetition and they were pretty realistic time-wise, not drawn out for pages on end. I did learn a new phrase though! Top from bottom. I mean I don’t think it fit the context here since it was vanilla but whatever. If he called her siren/little siren one more time though I was ready to throw the book across the room.

This is the first Persephone in a while that didn’t annoy me. I enjoyed how strong and independent she was and wish we had seen her play the game a bit in the upper city before meeting Hades. Speaking of Hades, super unimpressed. Listen we all like misunderstood man or a man that’s only good for you, but he fell flat for me. I couldn’t even tell you what he looked like. He was a giant softie that lost his personality the moment he met Persephone apparently.