Madeline Miller

2018

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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 27 January 2019.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)