WERBUNG
Book: Outrun the Wind | Author: Elizabeth Tammi | Publisher: Flux |
Pages: 305 | Publication: 27th November, 2018
Source
Synopsis:
The Huntresses of Artemis must obey two rules: never disobey the goddess, and never fall in love. After being rescued from a harrowing life as an Oracle of Delphi, Kahina is glad to be a part of the Hunt; living among a group of female warriors gives her a chance to reclaim her strength. But when a routine mission goes awry, Kahina breaks the first rule in order to save the legendary huntress Atalanta.
To earn back Artemis’s favor, Kahina must complete a dangerous task in the kingdom of Arkadia-where the king’s daughter is revealed to be none other than Atalanta. Still reeling from her disastrous quest and her father’s insistence on marriage, Atalanta isn’t sure what to make of Kahina.
As her connection to Atalanta deepens, Kahina finds herself in danger of breaking Artemis’s second rule. She helps Atalanta devise a dangerous game to avoid marriage, and word spreads throughout Greece, attracting suitors to go up against Atalanta in a race for her hand. But when the men responsible for both the girls’ dark pasts arrive, the game turns deadly. (Source)
My opinion:
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book! This will by no means influence my opinion stated in this review.
This review contains very slight spoilers, sorry. But there is something I need to say.
You had me at Greek myths, cool women and warriors. Because I’m a total nerd for all of these things. And I was not disappointed.
First off, the characters. The story is told from the POVs of the two protagonists, Kahina and Atalanta. They have quite similar voices, with only a few differences, so sometimes I got confused from which character the story was told at some points. I’ll start with Kahina who is basically the incarnation of the pure, sweet cinnamon roll. I don’t know how else to describe her. She is just so cute and amazing. She acts cool, trying to save herself and not letting anybody too close because of all the losses and shit in life she had to go through. But when she really takes a liking to someone and comes closer to them, she would not stop for anything in the world to help them.
And Atalanta! She is just a force of nature. The complete opposite of Kahina. Where the latter is thoughtful and calm, Atalanta seems to be always angry at everyone and everything. But same as Kahina, she changes towards someone she likes, being really sensitive and cute.
The other characters were either friend or foe. Most of them being foes though and basically all of them men who use their positions of power to do bad things.
The relationships between the characters are quite compley in some situations, because almost every character went through a lot and still has to deal with much stuff, it seems to be hard for all of them to really commit to anything, some are turning in complete egoists, some are driven by fear from or for somebody else, some out of love. But especially the relationship between Kahina and Atalanta is highlighted, the two being the main characters. Hello hello, favourite trope. Hate to friendship to lovers. Because yup, this book was the Ancient Greek lesbian story I’ve been waiting for. And their bantering and just generally the process of them starting to like each other….yes. Loved it.
The plot was also pretty cool as well. It’s basically those two girls against the world and especially against the villain who was… aan unconventional one? I really did not expect it and I still have some problems wrapping my mind around it, though on the other hand it makes sense and fits really well into the story.
My major points of critique are, as I mentioned before, the similarly told POVs, and that Kahina’s plot wasn’t developed enough. Atalanta and the thing with finding a husband is very detailed where as Kahina solving the task for Artemis really only gets a few pages. I wish that would have been a bit more elaborated.
But apart from those things, I totally enjoyed this book!
Rating:
★★★★/5
