Good, but unfaithful retelling

Psyche's character has been reimagined in the most predictable way. No longer is she a Disney-like princess, but this warrior woman akin to Atalanta. Call me a whiny, easily offended snowflake, but the retcon at the end, that this is the true story and the version we know is wrong is a kind of disgusting joke, a call, however earnest, to disregard the original story in favour of this lesser copy. McNamara didn't really add a whole lot to the story worth adding. There's some nods to the misogyny of the ancient Greek society and the original myths, but it doesn't go beyond this elbow nudging into something more relevant to our times. It just reiterates what we already know. "Those ancient greeks sure didn't respect women." If you want a version of this done better, read Erin Shield's Paradise Lost.
This changing of the source material does spiral out to other problems, mostly in the department of characters and plot. Not-Psyche is barely relatable or recognizable. The good-getter boss-girl character is poorly casted in this love story. Her being head-strong and swearing off marriage makes the transition of her falling head over heels for Eros feels forced. The story also loses its sense of purpose. Where before the story of Psyche and Eros was an allegory for love and it's effects on the human soul, Psyche finding someone who loves her for who she is and not her outer appearance, I'm not fully sure what McNamara is trying to say about love or this character with her new character. Regardless of the changes, Not-Psyche still has to hit some of the beats Psyche hit in the original myths, and the solutions range from unbelievable to Not-Psyche just being really flippin' stupid. It really does feel like McNamara wanted her Psyche to be Atalanta regardless of how well it worked for the story.
For all its faults as a retelling, the storytelling is fairly descent. While I don't like what was done with Psyche, I have to admit McNamara's is more intrinsically motivated and thus more interesting, and it is always cool to see a character who stands in contrast of her setting. Her interactions with the other characters are also pretty cool. I am a little peeved about how she flat out insults gods with zero consequences. It reminded me of freakin' Serene in Brandon Sanderson's Elantris. Don't get it twisted. Women talking back to men is based, but in a narrative, I would expect some cause and effect. You know, actions have consequences. When you're dealing with some of the most powerful beings of the world, I would expect the consequences to be more than said being crying and running away. The other characters are all mostly fun. Aphrodite is dark-haired, for some reason, and Persephone is the one who really runs the underworld, because she's better at it than Hades. That little bit isn't super important to this story, so I don't really see the need to complain about it.
As much as I've ragged on McNamara's altering of the source material, she has a firm grasp on Ancient Greek culture and other myths and represents those stories and times fairly believably. The adding of a time limit to Not-Psyche's tasks make it a lot more exciting. There are some liberties taken with time and space that just shatter the structure of the story for me. Eros's section starts at the beginning of the universe and it is so boring. Other myths interrupt this one, and it throws off the pacing for me.
Props to the tone and dialogue. Both Not-Psyche and Eros sound distinct when they talk and narrator, and their voices are lively and interesting. The language wasn't super poetic, but there was one nice simile where love was compared to footprints that I quite liked. I'm not a fan of contemporary expletives in the Ancient Greek setting.

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