The Palace of Eros

The Palace of Eros
Caro De Robertis, 2024

Premise: A retelling of Psyche and Eros, blending ancient myth with fluid gender and sexuality. 

A fascinating book, which I enjoyed a lot, but didn't completely love. The writing is very poetic and languid, which isn't for everyone. It drags in the middle, but the ending is fairly lovely.

This mythological romance-adjacent novel mostly follows Psyche, who is at first much like her traditional counterpart - she is impossibly lovely and universally sought after, which eventually raises the ire of Aphrodite. Of course, this book explores how she feels about all of this - the loss of her connection with her sisters as her beauty sets her apart, the feeling of being unpleasantly talked about and watched for nothing that she'd done. 

Eros receives less internal examination through much of the book, but is where the story most diverges from the original. Eros is explicitly and supernaturally nonbinary; she/he/they (mostly uses she in the book) can shapeshift fluidly from male to female and in-between. The book blends the "child of Aphrodite" aspect with the "powerful deity of desire and creation" aspect from some sources. Eros feels trapped by the conventions and structure that the other gods live under and considers her bond with her mother the only one that matters, until she meets Psyche.

Eros refuses to destroy Psyche when Aphrodite demands it, and orchestrates a message through an oracle that will have Psyche's family and village "sacrifice" her, while Eros plans to take her away. 

Eros creates an amazing palace for them to live in, but won't allow Psyche to see her husband/wife in the light. This is actually to protect them both from the other gods' knowledge, but she doesn't ever tell Psyche that, which is her eventual downfall. They have a very happy relationship until then, getting to know each other and having a LOT of semi-magical sex. Psyche spends a lot of time philosophizing about love and sex and gender and identity. She learns to paint and to masturbate. 

The outlines of the rest of the story follow the myth - sisters visit, Psyche breaks the darkness rule, and she takes on a series of trials to appease Aphrodite and win back Eros. The trials could have been given more time, but we spent so long contemplating the nature of truth and love earlier that there isn't space for them. Most of the final section is actually more about Eros' emotional journey toward understanding why Psyche broke the rule and forgiving her. Which is a necessary part of the story, but it does relegate all the questing near the end to almost dream-like sequences. Beautiful, but a bit vague in places. I did really like the conversation with Persephone; it brings in a different feminine perspective.

Our protagonists reunite, forgive each other and resolve to live their truth and work to help other women and people who don't fit into traditional boxes, despite what the other gods might try to do. 

4 Stars - A Good Book