Lifestyles of Gods & Monsters by Emily Roberson (ARC Review)

Title: Lifestyles of Gods & Monsters
Author: Emily Roberson
Type: Fiction
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Retelling, Mythology
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
(Macmillan Publishers)
Date published: October 20, 2019

A physical copy of this book was kindly provided by Raincoast Books in exchange for an honest review.

Sixteen-year-old Ariadne’s whole life is curated and shared with the world. Her royal family’s entertainment empire is beloved by the tabloids, all over social media, and the hottest thing on television. The biggest moneymaker? The Labyrinth Contest, a TV extravaganza in which Ariadne leads fourteen teens into a maze to kill a monster. To win means endless glory; to lose means death. In ten seasons, no one has ever won.

When the gorgeous, mysterious Theseus arrives at the competition and asks Ariadne to help him to victory, she doesn’t expect to fall for him. He might be acting interested in her just to boost ratings. Their chemistry is undeniable, though, and she can help him survive. If he wins, the contest would end for good. But if she helps him, she doesn’t just endanger her family’s empire―the monster would have to die. And for Ariadne, his life might be the only one worth saving.

Ariadne’s every move is watched by the public and predestined by the gods, so how can she find a way to forge her own destiny and save the people she loves?

⤖ My Review ⬻

The cover of Lifestyles of Gods & Monsters and the title are the first things that caught my attention. They intrigued me and made me want to know what the book was all about! I wanted to know why the statue of the girl is holding a cellphone. It gave me major Lore Olympus (a modernized Greek gods webtoon) vibes. When diving in, my interest was definitely piqued in the first chapter. I had questions, I wanted to know how the plot would develop, and I found that the world was really interesting and unique.

Once I finished the book, the closest comparison I could come up with was that this book was a mix of Lore Olympus (so my initial instinct was correct) and The Hunger Games series. I wish that there had been more of the Hunger Games aspect to this book though. And I also thought that there were some interesting aspects of this world that could have been explored further but wouldn’t. I wouldn’t mind if the author decided on making this book into a series so that I could learn more about the world in Lifestyles of Gods & Monsters. Overall, I did find this book to be an entertaining and quick read.

⤖ About the Author ⬻

Emily Roberson has been a bookseller in Little Rock, a newspaper reporter in Vicksburg, a marketing manager in Boston, and a writer in Chapel Hill and Dallas. She is an Arkansas native who graduated from Brown University and has a masters in English from the University of Texas at Austin. She lives in Arkansas with her husband and three sons.