In her debut collection, internationally acclaimed writer Bolu Babalola retells the most beautiful love stories from history and mythology with incredible new detail and vivacity. Focusing on the magical folktales of West Africa, Babalola also reimagines Greek myths, ancient legends from the Middle East, and stories from long-erased places.
– GoodReads
My Review
I am just one of those people that adores anthologies. I get a whole bunch of stories with so many awesome characters to enjoy all in one book. Like. Sign me up. (Saying this, my rating might be biased in that I just go crazy for short story anthologies lol)
Taking magical folktales from West Africa, Greece, and just straight up new ones too? Double sign me up.
I won’t lie, I enjoyed the heavy hand of pop culture references. I think that it’s important to have stories done for this moment for us now, it’s a good way to connect with a specific audience (in this case by certain generations). But I can see where it may not be to everyone’s liking so I’ll toss it in for a heads up.
The stories are overall on the shorter side which is a plus as we get to see a larger variety of characters this way!
The settings are as varied as the characters and their stories, different times, places, all of it pretty well rounded.
Obviously though there is a theme. These are all love stories and I enjoyed the different romances but if you’re looking for more variety in genre, probably not going to be the ticket here. Though it is a perfect Valentine’s Day read!
The retellings were my favorite ones (and were a majority of the stories to be fair), Babalola shined with these though that story she wrote about her own family was absolutely precious.
4/5 cups of coffee from me, I’m so happy I got to read this finally, it’s been on my shelf a while and was totally worth the read! Happy Valentine’s Day!
The Caffeinated Reader 