Mother of Rome: An uneven book

Mother of Rome by Lauren J.A. Bear

Lauren J.A. Bear’s first novel, Medusa’s Sisters, was a sharp feminist retelling of the well-known Greek tale. For her second book, Bear has left the Greeks behind and moved on to the Romans, giving us in Mother of Rome a sort of prequel to the Romulus and Remus Found Rome story. Though I found Mother of Rome to be more uneven than Medusa’s Sisters, there’s a lot I liked, including its use of structure, the dual portrayal of resistance, and the number of well-written passages.

At nineteen years old, Rhea Silvia lives a mostly good life as a princess of Alba Longa, the kingdom ruled by her father Numitor, despite the tragedy of having lost her mother and one of her two brothers to illness. But still, she lives in the Regia palace, has her best friend and cousin Antho (dauther of Numitor’s brother Amulius) always by her side, and if she knows she will eventually be married off, her father loves her and will seek a good loving match for her. There’s also the little matter of her having caught the eye of Mars, God of War, having danced with him at a recent festival (though only she knows his true nature).

But when her Uncle Amulius usurps the throne, her life is turned upside down. She is torn from her home and carted off to become a Vestal virgin for the next 30 years. What nobody knows though is that she is no longer a virgin — a death sentence once revealed —, having slept with Mars (planned) and become pregnant (unplanned). Thanks to some divine intervention, she is able to escape the order, and then later, take on the form of a she-wolf the rest of her life. save for the night of the new moon when she regains her human form for a short while. After giving birth to Romulus and Remus, she spends the next years watching over them (yes, as a wolf) and hoping for vengeance on her uncle, but also finding some joy in her interaction with yet another divine being — the local river god.

Meanwhile, back in Alba Longa, Antho is slowing growing into her own quieter sort of resistance, horrified by the methods her father used to take power, appalled by his willingness to use her merely as a political pawn by marrying her off to whatever old man works best to his advantage, and devastated by how she has had to give up her true love.

Lauren J.A. Bear

The book smoothly alternates between Antho and Rhea’s POVs. Rhea’s segments are filled more with action and violence, as several times she must escape those hunting her or must survive on her own. This holds true whether she is in human or animal form, and in fact she must defend herself (or her sons) against both people and other animals. Motherhood is also a major topic throughout Rhea’s portion of the text, presented in a variety of ways, whether it is the fierceness in defense of her children, the sad but necessary resignation of letting them go when it is better for them (rather than for her) to do so, or hopes and fears for their future.

Antho’s segments are less action-oriented, less violent, less bloody. She resists not through fighting but through careful, patient scheming, slowly learning more about what her father has done or has planned and then finding ways to subtly undermine those plans, gradually building up a network of spies and allies. Bear’s depiction of resistance via two modes is one of the book’s strengths — the typically “heroic” fashion of Rhea (the, cough cough, “lone wolf”) running parallel to the less extolled but just as brave method of working from the shadows quietly and little and by little as seen in Antho.

Their characterization is generally solid. Both are survivors, again though in different ways. Rhea is more the typical “feisty heroine”— she says what she thinks, refuses to be bound by strictures, is tenacious and fierce as well as flirty. She gains more depth in motherhood, mostly because it forces her to think outside the narrow vision of vengeance or her own bitterness. Plot-wise, Antho holds her own, and displays as mentioned a different kind of strength, but, and I can’t quite nail down why, she seemed more thin to me in terms of characterization. The other characters, including Romulus and Remus, unfortunately felt undeveloped, though Amulius is given a more nuanced backstory behind is more typical villainry.

Romantic elements appear in both plot strands: Rhea with her two gods and Antho with a Greek slave used as a palace guard. While I personally found this element to be the weakest aspect of the novel — the language felt less original, the scenes more stereotypical, the tone more YA-ish, the divine romances coming seemingly out of the blue — I’ll confess that romance tends not to be my thing generally, so take that criticism with a big grain of salt. Your mileage may certainly vary.

I was more enamored of the feminist lens the story is told through. Both main characters, though acted upon by men in power, as the society is set up to allow/encourage, maintain a sense of agency through their resistance. But also in other ways. Rhea, for instance, is not raped by Mars or in any way “taken” without consent. She enters into a dalliance with Mars fully cognizant of who he is, fully aware there “was no future for them.” Nor does the god wield anywhere near all the power in their relationship. Antho cannot escape being married off — the strictures of society do not allow for that — but that doesn’t preclude her from making her own form of happiness outside that forced marriage. The women are forced into situations, but time and time again they carve out ways to make their own choices, bend their lives in a direction they want them to go. We see other examples of strong women as well — Cybele and Vesta portrayed as powerful amongst the gods, not lesser deities, or Antho’s servant helping her in her plots against her father. Beyond the characters, the theme is also addressed in more overt fashion, as when Antho prays to Mars to “not let them kill her [Rhea] for living. Do not let them bury another women who deserves to rise. Do not let them punish one for the acts of two.”

Pacing was generally smooth throughout, though it did feel at times as if we were gliding through some points that I wouldn’t have minded slowing down through or getting a more full sense of. For instance, I never felt I had a good solid handle on the gods — their interest in Rhea, their powers and interactions, the views of the human characters toward them. It all felt a bit cloudy and even contradictory at times to me. Other such moments occur when we’re told of a major change but don’t really feel it in ensuing events/action, such as when Rhea is shamed when she comes face to face with her obliviousness to the common people’s plight: hunger, injustice, frequent death. Prose-wise, while the dialog sometimes felt a bit awkward or off, there were as mentioned a number of well-written passages or lines that made one pause and linger for a moment.

All in all, as I stated in the intro, Mother of Rome was an uneven book, with some underlying issues that kept me from fully becoming immersed in the story and a bit more time spent on YA-ish romance than I personally prefer (this issue being all on me, not the book/author). But the novel’s strengths outweigh its weaknesses, making it a solid entry in the myth-retelling genre currently inundating the bookshelves.