Book Review: Lore Olympus Volume Eight by Rachel Smythe

Lore Olympus: Volume Eight by Rachel Smythe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Persephone’s trial concludes and the fallout for Olympus, the Mortal Realm, and the Underworld are dire even before the reemergence of a titanic threat. Lore Olympus Volume Eight by Rachel Smythe finds Zeus looking to solve the problem that Persephone’s existence has brought about only for things to get extremely more complicated before the return of an ancient evil.

Covering episodes #180-206 of her webcomic, Smythe gives every reader the hope that everything will turn out okay only for her to pull the rug out from under their expectations and dooming her protagonists to forced separation. The fallout is chaos in all three realms especially as it allows Kronos to escape Tartarus and attempt to get his hands on a fertility goddess, which becomes easy when Persephone defies Zeus’ sentence to travel to the Underworld only for her to “eat the pomegranate” and upend the Titan’s coup attempt. Smythe’s artistic work continues to be top notch throughout the book, especially as Persephone’s character changed in various ways. This volume saw a lot of the secondary and side characters get some focus as Persephone’s banishment had an influence across the realms in various ways, as of now I’m fine with the lesser amount of time the two major protagonists were given due to the way the narrative was going at this juncture however given how the volume concluded that better be reversed. Overall, I found this volume a good read, getting through it quickly when I allowed myself the time to read it, and frankly Persephone’s design as Queen of the Underworld was worth the wait.

Lore Olympus Volume Eight sees Rachel Smythe swerve the expectations of her readers with how she charted the narrative only to give them the moment they’ve been wanting to see since the series started, an entertaining and satisfying misdirection.

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