Author: Barry Denenberg (no website found)
Publisher: Scholastic
Rating: WARTY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!
So it's December sixteenth which must mean it's time for a novel beginning with the letter 'P'!
This is one of at least three books in "The Life and Times" Series, the other two being Atticus of Rome written by the same author as this one, and "Maïa of Thebes written by Ann Turner.
This story is of course about a girl named Pandora, who learns at the start of the book that she is named after the woman who was created - in a creation story which was obviously taken from the same roots as the Biblical creation fairy tale - as a punishment for humans accepting the gift of fire from Prometheus (who subsequently contracted a severe liver complaint!).
Pandora lives with her strict father Alcander, and her increasingly snotty brother Polybius. Being men in a man's world, those two had it easy, and had all the freedom they wanted. Pandora had heavy restrictions placed upon her behavior and freedom because she was a woman, and she resented this immensely, but she was at least blessed by a stepmother who was a Spartan!
I don't normally do covers for the very reason (inter alia) I'm about to highlight: my blog is about writing, not window dressing, which is all covers are: fluff at best and fraud at worst. The writer has little or nothing to do with the cover unless they self-publish, which is why we get dumb-ass covers such as the one this books sports. Cover artists never, ever, ever, ever read the novel which they illustrate. If they did, then this artist would have put the amphora on the girl's head, where the text quite clearly states she carried it, instead of on her clavicle - not even her shoulder!) as the artist cluelessly cants it!
Some parts of this novel were interesting, but I got the distinct impresison that the writer had a list of facts about life in Athens, and he was determined to put all of them into this story no matter what, so some parts of it read like a shopping list.
Another issue I have with historical novels - particularly those written for young people - is how they depict real historical characters. They're usually depicted as clowns or geniuses, neither of which portrait ends up being very complimentary to them. This happens here, with Socrates presented as some sort of brilliant genius and super-hero philospher when he was no such thing.
Since everything we know about Socrates was written by Plato and others, we really don't know Socrates at all. All we know is what people said about him. He was evidently against democracy and something of a hypocrite, as well as being arrogant in the extreme. He purportedly believed that might does not make right, but he supported the Spartans against Athens!
So, all in all I am not going to recommend this novel unless you want to read it as a laundry list of aspects of life in Athens in 399BC, in which case it's not bad, I guess, but you can get a better deal by actually reading a book about life back then rather than this novel.
