Circe- Book Review
Rating: 4 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Author: Madeline Miller
Series: N/A
“I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing”
To be honest, going into this I had extremely high expectations as it was the winner for Goodreads Best Fantasy novel. Meaning it beat both The Poppy Wars (review here) which was my favorite book of 2018 and it beat The Girl in the Tower (which was the fantastic sequel to The Bear and the Nightingale- a Russian Medieval Fantasy novel).
Unfortunately it didn’t live up to the hype — and that’s not to say I didn’t like it, because I did… but it didn’t feel like it was on the same level as the other books.
Poppy Wars was wonderfully dark and shocking with a complex world. The Girl in the Tower was extremely whimsical and captures that perfect balance of Fairy Tales and History. Both are insightful and are inspired by time periods that aren’t usually featured in literature (Second Sino-Japanese War and Medieval Russia).
Circe features — you guessed it — Circe and is a retelling on parts of the Odyssey and other tales of Greek Mythology.
Which I love Greek mythology (seriously I went through a phase when that was the only thing I read for a good 6 months to a year) but there are already so many books featuring these myths.
The topic is so overused and the story itself was so predictable making it — in my opinion — undeserving of that award.
But with that mini-rant out of the way- here is why Circe is a solid book to read.
Circe combines Greek mythology, complex heroines, modern values, and tales of adventure, betrayal, magic, and monsters.
And it can probably be best described as a portrait on character growth. How an extremely timid and dependent nymph becomes a powerful terrifying witch and how that witch in turn evolves into something more.
Throughout the novel the author explores some of the more cringe-worthy features in Greek mythology — chiefly women’s roles —
Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.
And Miller does a wonderful job depicting the injustice and sexist attitudes that permeated that time period (as well as today).
I really enjoyed how the author weaved so many of the myths and stories together and I enjoyed seeing how everything connected both before and after Circe is exiled to the island Aeaea.
The main drawback in this book is the pacing; which was definitely slow (by slowly paced I mean lots of extra details, description, and a focus more of character dynamics rather than plot).
I am a firm believer that books should only be slowly paced if they rely heavily on plot building for crazy twists (e.g. Game of Thrones, Mistborn, Way of Kings) and the book didn’t justify being 400 pages (it could have easily been 300–350).
Despite the pacing if you love tales of Greek heroes and monster, stories of betrayal, bloodshed, and magic — this story if for you!
Find what I’m currently reading and other book recommendations here.
