A Book Review "The Dark Wife" by Sarah Diemer
A Non spoiler review focused around character formation and plot analysis.
“The Dark Wife” by Sarah Diemer was a fun retelling of Persephone’s story into the underworld. While I enjoyed the depictions and unique drive that showed throughout the short read, I was disappointed in a few creative liberties presented by the author. Nevertheless, I found myself craving more of the retelling after I finished its final pages. I would recommend this work for any who enjoy sappy sapphic love stories where the heart conquers all.
The character depiction of Persephone was outstanding. She had layered reactions to her own emotions and experience which I found an interesting twist to a passive character. Often what came out of her mouth was soft and sweet but what was in her head had a bit of a bite. I enjoyed watching her personality come alive and grow as the story unfolded. This change also made sense as Persephone herself was young and inexperienced at the beginning of the story but grew into herself as time passed.
The rest of the cast was a bit one-sided for my liking. In many cases, they only seemed to have one purpose and one drive. Due to this narrow-minded focus on purpose, I found it difficult to understand the actions of those around Persephone. It felt like there were parts of the story that were hinted at but had no map to put the puzzle pieces together. The group of characters seemed to be both too large to get close enough to any particular character and too small for communities and groups to act in movement together. Even saying that, I’m unsure if that's true. Through most of it we only had dialogue from three characters and even then their words were just something you had to rely on with little to know proof beyond promises and claims.
Yet the ending, without spoiling it, drew me into deeper interest to the point where if Diemer wrote a sequel I would gladly pick it up. In fact, that's the most I can say about the novella. There are bits of gold sprinkled around that pulled me in and fascinated me by its concept. I often asked myself “what if” and “oh can you expand on this part.” I wish the author built up the courage to dive deeper into these ideas. Diemer’s writing style is well done and could easily captivate the audience for many more chapters, which leads me to my final point:
Often, religious texts and old stories have a certain phrasing and communication style that can easily be identified. Diemer managed to put that same style into her book, to the point where it did sound like an older account of a religious story. I was surprised at the attention to vague detail that I’ve only experienced while studying old text. She did a brilliant job bringing past styles into present fan-fiction making this story refreshing and unique.
Diemer did a wonderful job of hinting at a truly deep and diverse world but didn't have enough time to further establish it. I would suggest this read for a quick weekend romance that leaves you feeling like love can exist. I encourage you to read it a few times in order to fully understand the details and events that are happening in the story itself and to never stereotype. Even if you are assuming the worst of a Goddess of the Underworld.