Dreamland Review Archive

Hercules and His Twelve Labours (DS)

Hercules and His Twelve Labours by johnbwes

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to read your book. Please, keep in mind that my reading of your story is by necessity a subjective opinion. Your story is beautiful and important to you more than any other story you could have been telling. How I perceived it is very much a matter of my preferences

It's a retelling of Greek myth in verse. I'm not going to lie, I completely missed that the whole story is in verse. I don't believe myself to be a good judge of poetry, since I haven't read and written poetry since my early twenties. I also don't follow the poetic side of Wattpad.

I appreciate two things about your verses.

First, is that it is written in a light, classic metre with meticulous rhyming, which is hard to do in English, since it is not a language that is easily poetic.

Second, is that the Greek story is preserved without modern alterations as far as I could tell. So, it is different from the multitude of the retells of, say, Hades and Persephone myth on Wattpad where Persephone is a sassy teenager and Hades is a brooding possessive billionaire. It is also different from popularization of Greek mythology for modern teens by Rick Riordan.

In your narrative you use an omniscient voice, and for me it works. It's upbeat, it's snappy and it pops. I feel like I can listen to it from the stage as the author reads the story. Well done.

I don't have suggestions for improvement, as I feel this is your passion project and I can sense that you are having a blast writing it. I think if there is an audience for a novel in verse for a classic Greek retell, they will find your story engaging.

However, I think that the appeal for a chanced reader to just drop in and exclaim, 'OMG, I never knew I wanted this in my life!' is limited on Wattpad. That's said, I believe in passion projects above all and wish yours to be a happy exception. And if not, own it, wear it and be proud of doing what nobody else is doing. 

Kudos for that. Wattpad's best purpose is to host stuff like your weird and wonderful story.