Spoiler: Mt Vesuvius erupts in Vesuvius by Cass Biehn

So I’m talking about Vesuvius by Cass Biehn – a book I had previously never even heard of, however, as I’m writing this first part of this post, I have a week off of work and am going to four different concerts so have ended up in a bunch of different cities and bookshops. Anyway, I got this from Gay’s the Word and read the entirety of it on train journeys, so is what I’m going to say about it going to be more erratic than usual? Perhaps.

The blurb says that clever thief Felix seizes an opportunity to steal a helmet in Pompeii, but soon discovers it is not only a priceless artefact but a relic of the god Mercury. Loren, a temple attendant, is plagued by nightmares of Pompeii’s destruction. Nightmares that feature Felix, who stumbles into Loren’s temple as an earthquake rocks the city. They have mere days to uncover Felix’s ties to the helmet and to Loren’s own dreams if they have any hope of saving Pompeii from the boiling fury of Mount Vesuvius. The boys must piece together their fates – and their growing feelings for one another – to make it out of a burning city alive.

So first up, I initially picked this book up judging it by its cover because the cover absolutely eats. It’s the two boys standing before an erupting Vesuvius, it’s Turntina Aguilera. But after that, from the blurb, I don’t know whether there were any survivors of Pompeii. I’m sure there were people on the edge of the city, but I presumed that the boys weren’t going to be able to stop the eruption since it really happened, unless this book goes on an alternate timeline where Pompeii was able to be saved. And now I’m finishing this paragraph having read the book with a spoiler alert! Vesuvius erupts! Guys, I know you shouldn’t spoil plot events like this, but it’s not like Vesuvius erupted in real life and destroyed the real Pompeii or anything. That definitely didn’t happen in real life.

The book opens with Felix having just stolen the helmet and attempting to escape Pompeii. He mentions to the reader that he has no past or future and mentions having problems remembering just in general. Then while he’s escaping from city guards with the helmet where he gets clarted around the face with a bowl. Which then pops us over to Loren’s POV where we find out he was the one doing the clarting. You see Loren is an errand boy for the Temple of Isis – shout-out to Icesis Couture – who is having these nightmares about the state of Pompeii which he is determined to save.

Now to speak about tropes. My brain wants to say enemies-to-lovers, but I wouldn’t have ever called Loren and Felix enemies. Sure, they were bristly and cold to each other – bitches, even – but I don’t think they were enemies. It was like haters-to-loves, if that’s an actual trope. And I think my favourite part was seeing the way that Felix would slowly open up to Loren throughout the story. Between the two of them, Felix was by far the least trusting of the two. He does consistently remind himself of his rules where he doesn’t want to get attached to anyone, so that he’s able to leave places and people behind. And that in a gag to no one (I mean, just look at the cover), he ends up getting attached to Loren. The thing I enjoyed about this was that you could tell he was developing an attachment despite not wanting to. He was still standoffish but like a cat. Like, you can tell when a cat loves you, but a cat will still be an asshole to you. That’s kind of how Felix was to Loren.

In the helmet that Felix steals, you find out that he is the only one able to touch the helmet. He has no clue that it has been sat in the temple it lived in for years with no one able to move it. To him, it was just a fancy helmet on display that he says will pay for his way through the next ten cities, bless him, he has no idea that it’s tied to an actual god, despite the fact he hears whispers telling him to put it on. But to tie back to the relationship between Loren and Felix, Felix does end up telling Loren that he’ll only put the helmet on if Loren tells him to. And to paraphrase a RuPaul quote, “Love, love, love that, umm, stuff.” I truly do think that some of the most romantic relationships are the ones that are formed through two people who are just such menaces to each other.

I was a big fan of how clueless both of the boys were. I understand in YA that all our protagonists are going to be at most, maybe, early 20s, if not just all teenagers. Loren and Felix were both very much that, teenagers. And in a shock twist, that I know no one is going to see coming… teenagers don’t know shit about the world. In this book, and the city of Pompeii, it’s all very political – Loren wants to actively make a difference and even become a politician. Given that the boys don’t know shit, they don’t see how deeply they needed to have been thinking through basically everything that gets done and every decision that is to be made. Saying that, politics don’t mean diddly squat when you’ve got Miss Vesuvius Iman Le’Paige off in the ready to destroy the entire city. There is reason to this point. You see Loren making decisions that he thinks are smart, only to learn along with him that he also doesn’t know anything. So, despite what he thinks is good, there are people with more wisdom and experience who are steps ahead of him at every turn.

Sometimes, judging a book by its cover is a good thing. I know a cover doesn’t determine a book’s worth, but if something looks cool, I’m just more likely to pick it up, as sad a thing as that is. But I’m glad that I did pick this up in Gay’s the Word, because I had never even heard of it before I saw it on the shelf and I ended up getting to read a really severe serve of a book that was romance but also low-key not at the same time. Don’t get me wrong, Loren and Felix were definitely romantic together, and the cover has the two of them together, it’s just that their romance wasn’t the focus of the book – something I love in a romance book, as I so often say.

Okay, bye!