By: Samuel Defazio
Ever since the platform TikTok gained popularity, it has spawned many types of sub-hashtags that point you into either a new obsession or helps you continue to eat away at your current vice. One of these hashtags is called Book Tok. As you can guess, Book Tok is for people obsessed and addicted to reading with other people giving reviews or making content related to the book or subject. The last few years one genre has been talked about the most on this app, and that is Romantasy. This genre combines the Romance and Fantasy genre into its own little web.
Now, this genre is not a new fascination by any means but in modern years it has grown and grown giving way to millions of different stories coming into the limelight. Some big examples of this are Four Wing, A Court Of Thorns And Roses, and Throne Of Glass. However, these Book Tok Influencers can sometimes push a certain book that just never really meets expectations. Blood Of Hercules by Jasmine Mas is one of these instances.
An “epic” story about a nineteen-year-old girl named Alexis Hero who is an orphan and has been taking care of her non-related brother Charlie. They scavenge for food and live out of cardboard boxes. They also attend high school (like most kids that live in boxes, right?) and Alexis finds out she is a Spartan, a dangerous powerful being that fights Titans among gods. She is sent to an academy to help learn her powers and to become a warrior. Will she survive? Or will dark mysteries unfold?
Tell me where you heard this one before. It feels like Harry Potter just had a baby with Percy Jackson and just couldn’t raise it right. The story is, by the numbers, predictable. The main character is incredibly hard to cheer for, and the setting feels too liminal. This book goes to show that not every book you see on Book Tok is worth the hype. I got halfway through before I started to yell in my head, “Is This Going Anywhere?” I’m not even sure the author knows where this is going. Also, for those spicy Romance readers looking at this; Yes, there is spice, but not until the last three chapters. Might as well call it mild. Cause that’s all this book is. When a story gives you nothing to sink into, sometimes it’s best to put it down. I rate this book 2 out of 5 stars.
Image Source: HarperCollins.com