thenatashapulleyuniverse

[thenatashapulleyuniverse]

A really fun ballet thing is when they have like a bunch of actual child extras and also there's clearly some twink jumping around who's meant to also be a little boy but the role involves a level of dancing far too strenuous to make a kid do ethically. This isn't me nitpicking it's not a medium that's remotely focused on realism or whatever I just chuckle a little

[thenatashapulleyuniverse]

me reading the new Natasha Pulley book:

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*I received an eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Image & summary from Goodreads*

Raised in a Greek legion, Phaidros has been taught to fight for the homeland he’s never seen and to follow his commander’s orders at all costs. But when he rescues a baby from a fire at Thebes’s palace, his commander’s orders cease to make sense: Phaidros is forced to abandon the blue-eyed boy at a temple, and to keep the baby’s existence a secret.

Years later, after a strange encounter that led to the death of his battalion, Phaidros has become a training master for young soldiers. He struggles with panic attacks and flashbacks, and he is not the only one: all around him, his fellow veterans are losing their minds.

Phaidros’s risk of madness is not his only problem: his life has become entangled with Thebes’s young crown prince, who wishes to escape the marriage his mother, the Queen, has chosen for him. When the prince vanishes, Phaidros is drawn into the search for him—a search that leads him to a blue-eyed witch named Dionysus, whose guidance is as wise as the events that surround him are strange. In Dionysus’s company, Phaidros witnesses sudden outbursts of riots and unrest, and everywhere Dionysus goes, rumors follow about a new god, one sired by Zeus but lost in a fire.

In The Hymn to Dionysus, bestselling author Natasha Pulley transports us to an ancient empire on the edge of ruin to tell an utterly captivating story about a man needing a god to remind him how to be a human.

Classic Natasha Pulley, but this time in ancient Thebes! While I would describe this a slow building story, it's one that I read very quickly because I became deeply invested in Phaidros. Like Pulley's other novels, Thebes is not the Thebes we know from history and legends, but is far stranger and more magical. There, ancient and wondrous marvels - giant bronze, clockwork-powered statues of the gods - keep watch over the city. It's a city beset by drought and famine, and ruled by a queen who is determined to stay in power no matter the costs. Phaidros, a lifelong knight in the Theban legion, is at the heart of the novel. He is fully committed to his duty and serving with honor, no matter what it costs for him and his withering soul. He's charged with training the teen knights and leading them on violent missions, but he also does what he can to keep them safe and from veering into madness, a formidable challenge as the city is plagued by madness from an unknown origin, but one that Phaidros fears he's invited in.

The character work in this book is amazing! Phaidros is a mess of a man, struggling to live with the heavy weight of loss, trauma, and grief. He's also haunted by the memory of the blue eyed boy he saved. He's caught between the cherished memory of the commander he loved, and the newly arrived, mysterious and beautiful witch who offers comfort and companionship. As the story progresses, Phaidros finds his allegiance to his queen sorely tested, even as the mysteries surrounding him become more dangerous. Deeply moving, full of intrigue, and bittersweet, The Hymn to Dionysus is a fantastic story, and one I know I'll come back to again and again!

Pub date March 18, 2025

On a more personal note, I really, really loved this book! It reminded me the most of The Bedlam Stacks with the tone, strangeness, very sad older man, pining, morally gray MC but doing their best. There's some really lovely hurt/comfort, lots of misunderstanding, so many moments of wanting to hug or shake Phaidros. And Dionysus!! I love this version of him! That's all I'm going to say about that *warm feels*

[thenatashapulleyuniverse]

The problem with commercial F/M romance is that it's written by the most heterosexual women alive and reading it you feel yourself slowly suffocating from the Gender of it all like a fish in a eutrophying lake. And what we actually need as a culture is F/M written by insane bisexuals violently allergic to heteronormativity

[thenatashapulleyuniverse]

Keita Mori from the Watchmaker of Filigree Street is an avatar of the Web (I know my man can see the future, but thats one of the things The Eye explicitly cannot see. He is, however, manipulative to a fault)

keita mori from the watchmaker of filigree street is an avatar of the web!

[thenatashapulleyuniverse]

reporting in the Phaidros is another peak lonely, middle-aged (for the time) man who is suffering from trauma, loss, and disability. furthermore, he is pining/yearning/longing for the mysterious boy he encountered in his past. he's also in the Natasha Pulley brand of morally grey for Reasons

(a reviewer commented that all Pulley protags are British despite whenever and wherever they are, and yes that's true here as well. ye old Theban warrior just told a prince "off you fuck." so if you're bothered by anachronism umm you will probably be bothered)

[thenatashapulleyuniverse]

Fav character thing

[thenatashapulleyuniverse]

there’s something there with Mori’s clairvoyance and autism I think. you explain how you experience the world and someone says that must be difficult/sad/etc and yeah sometimes it is but you have never known any other way. you scare people without meaning to. there’s always been something not quite right about you even as a kid. you say the wrong things but it feels like the other person’s fault for not staying on script. you develop routines and preferences and fears based on patterns no else understands.

everyone knows there is something wrong with you but sometimes they keep you around if you can make up for it somehow. if you notice things, if you give them something to laugh at, if you do them favors, it doesn’t matter as long as you are useful. be helpful, be funny, be kind, be so fucking useful that maybe they won’t care when you can’t hide the wrong parts of you.

[thenatashapulleyuniverse]

I am begging all of you to read Shadows Under Silver Light by @drift-wing it's one of the best longfics I've read it's so good and I read all 70k words of it in one night it's made me insane

[thenatashapulleyuniverse]

I am begging all of you to read Shadows Under Silver Light by @drift-wing it's one of the best longfics I've read it's so good and I read all 70k words of it in one night it's made me insane

[thenatashapulleyuniverse]

The one thing men in the 1700s did right was have long hair they tie back into a low ponytail with a little ribbon and also have a few stray strands at the front. Almost everything else they did that century was inexcusable though

[thenatashapulleyuniverse]

“what’s your dream job” im so glad you asked. picture this. i am the lone employee of a strange and mysterious tchotchke/bookshop in the middle of nowhere, full of fun and interesting things that i am allowed to take for the low low price of free of charge. i get one, exceedingly interesting, customer per hour. i work no more than twenty hours a week and am salaried 3 million dollars

[thenatashapulleyuniverse]

Finally made good on my New Year’s resolution and drew a thing! Drew Gale on my Bio notes—that’s meant to be Mars and its moons behind them.

[thenatashapulleyuniverse]

how could anyone ever hate me i have big brown eyes and a thousand yard stare