MixedThe Times Literary Supplement (UK)Hughes moves quickly from antiquity to the present day. The breakneck speed leads to some sweeping statements. And it can make for some fast leaps ... There are also signs of haste in the research ... The value of the book lies not in its broader claims, but in its pleasurable selection of interesting objects on which to reflect, and fascinating nuggets of information ... The style is so overwrought that reading about the “throbbing primal power of Aphrodite” becomes a bit wearing. Is Bettany Hughes’s breathy enthusiasm a style that she developed in response to the misogyny of a media that finds it hard to accept women’s voices as authoritative? ... Or is the idea that in a book about desire, the medium must be the message? Either way, such heightened prose is difficult to keep up, and the ending of the last chapter collapses, spent, in a conclusion that few will argue with: \'Until love is redundant, the goddess of love looks unlikely to lose her appeal\'.
