Reviews

The Venus Throw by Steven Saylor

silverstarswept's review

5.0

There’s a lot to love about this, but it’s late on a (virtual) school night, so I’ll just comment that I very much appreciated the way the novel handled the themes of violence, particularly sexual violence, against women. It’s something that connects both Clodia, a wealthy Roman patrician woman, and Bethesda, an Egyptian former slave, as well as the young slave girl Zotica

for whom the abuse is too much, causing her severe mental distress.

I’ll spoiler mark this just to be safe, but

the idea of Bethesda never in 30 years disclosing what happened to her to Gordianus, but explaining to her daughter as soon as she was old enough to understand (and Clodia’s mirroring story of confiding in no one but an old slave woman)

felt as relevant to our society today as to that of Gordianus and his family. Also, very very major spoiler but

I just really love and respect 13-year-old Diana for almost instantly taking the decision to kill the man who abused her mother, that was an extremely badass thing to do.

julieputty's review

3.0

Not my favorite of this series, though I thought the ending was extremely strong.