Saturday, January 3, 2009

Gladiatrix by Russell Whitfield

Lysandra is a priestess of Athene, trained in the military arts just as a man of her time. She has been captured and enslaved by the owner of a training camp for women gladiators. As you might imagine, this is not a book for anyone averse to a little violence. In fact, the reader should be prepared for A LOT of violence. Reader beware. I, luckily, generally don't mind the violence as long as it has a place, and I knew when I requested this book from LibraryThing that it would be violent. 

I enjoyed Gladiatrix quite a bit, although there were a few things that I didn't care for. Lysandra was not a terribly sympathetic character - her arrogance was downright laughable at times. Also (spoiler ahead - highlight to read) the battle that the gladiatrices were preparing for for a good portion of the 2nd half of the book never happened, and the fight with Sorina was anticlimactic (although I wasn't surprised - I thought either they would both live or they would both die)

That said, I liked the book from the moment I started reading it, and I had a hard time putting it down when I neared the end. I will definitely watch for other books by Russell Whitfield!

2 comments:

Amanda said...

Good review. This book looked interesting, but I did not request it because of the violence. Like how you used the highlighting to hide a spoiler! :)

Somer said...

I stole that idea from you!

The book was very good, but definitely not for someone who can't stomach violence. It was probably one of the more violent books I've ever read.