Wicked Beauty by Katee Robert Series: Dark Olympus #3
Published by Sourcebooks on June 7, 2022
Genres: Fiction / Romance / Contemporary
Pages: 400
Format: Paperback
She was the face that launched a thousand ships, the fierce beauty at the heart of Olympus...and she was never ours to claim.
In Olympus, you either have the power to rule...or you are ruled. Achilles Kallis may have been born with nothing, but as a child he vowed he would claw his way into the poisonous city's inner circle. Now that a coveted role has opened to anyone with the strength to claim it, he and his partner, Patroclus Fotos, plan to compete and double their odds of winning.
Neither expect infamous beauty Helen Kasios to be part of the prize...or for the complicated fire that burns the moment she looks their way. Zeus may have decided Helen is his to give to away, but she has her own plans. She enters into the competition as a middle finger to the meddling Thirteen rulers, effectively vying for her own hand in marriage. Unfortunately, there are those who would rather see her dead than lead the city. The only people she can trust are the ones she can't keep her hands off—Achilles and Patroclus. But can she really believe they have her best interests at heart when every stolen kiss is a battlefield?
When I first read this, I rated it 3.75. While reading it, I was thinking of lowering it to 3 stars and which is what I set it at once finishing it. But after taking the day to think, I do have to lower it to 2.5. I hate doing that because I really love Katee Robert’s books and this universe they’re creating. Yet, this one just doesn’t match up with the other two.
The whole tournament to determine who becomes Ares is such a fantastic idea. I’m absolutely here for it, but it fell flat when I read it this time. The sex scenes were more detailed and focused on then the tournament scenes. I’m not saying that the sex scenes were bad or should’ve been shortened, but I feel like more consideration could’ve been given to the tournament. Especially the last trial that was over in a chapter, it all happened so quick.
The characters themselves were…not as good as previous books. I really wanted to love them all, but they were all a bit two dimensional to me. To start off with, Helen is probably the most developed of the three main characters. However, there’s still not a lot we know about her. She’s been abused and manipulated by all the men in her life (father, brother, ex-boyfriend) and wants to have her own autonomy and independence. Then there’s the mask of the air-head, party girl she poses as for the public. I couldn’t tell you anything else about Helen though. It would’ve been great to see some flashbacks of her childhood growing up with the former Zeus as a father to show the abuse. It also felt like Helen’s character was more of a blend of Persephone and Psyche then her own person.
In general, most of the characters traits were told not shown. With Patroclus, we’re told almost every single page that he’s so intelligent and brilliant and such a tactician. Yet, we never see that in the book. We don’t have his POV in the first trial, the second trial he’s overtaken by Hector and has to be saved by Achilles, and the last trial he’s targeted by the Minotaur and loses. Even before the last trial, when Helen finally gives them the ass whipping they most richly deserve, he admits that he never looked at the 13 only the military aspects of the job. To leave as big of a blind spot as that, doesn’t match up with us being told he’s so intelligent because someone that smart (and someone who did grow up in those politics before his mothers decided it wasn’t worth it) would’ve thought of the politics surrounding the 13. The only scene we see of him actually using his intelligence is going to camp out outside the building to see who else signs up for the tournament (which doesn’t last once he sees Helen and goes back home). In comparison, there’s multiple scenes in Electric Idol where Psyche’s intelligence is shown: her rearranging the lights to get the best picture(s) of her and Eros, the plans to wait until they go for an interview when the public will be frothing at the mouth for their story, and even the show down between her and Aphrodite was her idea. None of that we see with Patroclus.
Achilles was my least favorite in this book and in all the series all together. I really wanted to throttle him throughout the book. I hate how he treats everyone. His arrogance isn’t cute or hot, it’s frustrating. How both him and Patroclus refuse to actually communicate with each other about what happens when he becomes Ares would help both of them. I’m not a fan of poly relationships for myself but if it works for you it works for you. The whole idea that both Achilles and Patroclus tell each other that they didn’t cheat is extremely problematic. The fact they don’t have clear rules about who they can have relations with is an issue for poly relations that they should work on. Plus, have an actual conversation about Helen instead of ignoring it. I’m also confused by why there’s such a push by Athena (and her people) to have Achilles as Ares. Achilles is a foot man, he admits it himself that he’s not good at seeing the bigger picture and doesn’t like the public/politics aspects. The position of Ares is security, but that doesn’t involve Ares himself getting into the mess. Ares is the head of it, that means he’s more of a general or CEO, then a foot soldier. Athena says to Achilles at the hospital that they needed more military experience for the role of Ares…well please tell me the military experience that Achilles has had. As Helen tells us, Ares has been more of a figure head of a job for the last 60 odd years and that the last Ares even left most of the job to his right hand man. So, when would Achilles have had any military experience? Yes, he would’ve been part of security and special forces for the 13 and Olympus but none of that involves actual military issues.
Throughout the book the blatant misogyny that Achilles has towards Helen, and the lack of actually listening to what she’s saying is so damn frustrating! These two men operating under the assumption that Achilles would win (Patroclus even has a scene of him thinking it as a fact when it is not) was so fucked up. The idea that Helen could win was so out of left field to them they didn’t entertain it. The only reason Achilles initially changed his mind about Helen is because he got his dick wet. He never actually took the time to understand her (neither of them did) because if so, they would’ve understood why she wanted to be Ares before she had to spell it out for them.
For this re-read, I was more disappointed by the characters and the plot and left with more questions than answers. One really big one is, where in the world is Olympus?? In Neon Gods, Persephone brings up escaping Olympus and going to California, so is this place in the United States. In this book, Helen discusses the buildings as a nod to their Greek ancestry and the Minos peoples come, so is this place somewhere near Greece? I just have many questions and as I have only read through book Midnight Ruin, and I don’t remember these being answered yet. I’m hoping we get more answers in the last 4 books that I haven’t read yet (the last one not being out yet).
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