Madeline Miller (2018)
The story of Circe, daughter of Helios and witch of the Odyssey, told from her perspective.
It’s very much a feminist story, capturing all the incidental abuses to which women in heroic narratives are always subject. It’s a pleasure to read and avoids becoming either preachy or too anachronistic: Circe feels like a classical goddess, not like an out-of-time modern. It’s also clever how Miller has managed to weave together the “main” part of Circe’s story from the Odyssey with the other, lesser-known elements that appear in different re-tellings, in order to make the narrative seamless across Circe’s lived experience.
5/5. Finished Monday 21 January, 2019.
(Originally published on Goodreads.)