Reviews with content warning for Genocide - A Thousand Ships

Reviews tagging 'Genocide'

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

35 reviews

arieloley's review

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

The women affected by the Trojan war span so many ages, classes, statuses, and Haynes did an incredible job of including as many as possible. It was so refreshing to hear the classic story from a forgotten point of view, and made choosing allegiance to one or the other side a much more difficult task than it had ever seemed before.

Some pieces of Haynes’ writing seemed juvenile, disappointing when considering her long career. This was only a slight hinderance, and most of the book was compelling.

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aenor's review

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dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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kris_tea516's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This book is a modern epic. It follows the time just after the Trojan War and in parallel with “The Odyssey” but from the perspective of the women. This book tells the story of several women including Eris (goddess of discord & strife), Penthesilea (an Amazon queen), Thetis (mother of Achilles), Oenone (Paris’ wife), Penelope (Odysseus’s wife), and a few others.

I wasn’t sure I was going to like the book at first. There were so many perspectives & I was worried I was going to get lost in all the characters but the author did the narration for the audiobook and did an amazing job. She added sigh’s, sarcasm, and passion where just reading the physical book I think I would have missed.

Since this follows the aftermath of war, especially ancient world war, it deals with a lot of really hard realities that most definitely happened to the conquered people, particularly the women & children. It discusses the killing of children and the elderly, the enslavement and rape of women, the trauma of mothers losing their children and husbands (even a very traumatic scene where an infant is murdered). I know these things did (and likely still do) happen & it is good for us to face the realities of war & consider the cost but it is still very difficult to read. There were times I had to take a break to keep from breaking down.

I will say, my favorite character is Penelope and her “letters” to Odysseus and her growing anger and irritation with him. Her sarcasm was excellent and I wanted cry out, “You tell him, Penelope!”

If you enjoy Greek history and mythology, especially “The Iliad” &/or “The Odyssey,” I would highly recommend this book.

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kate_arts's review

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adventurous challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

Damn. This book was really hard for me to pick up, but once I did I loved it. Natalie Haynes said that she set out to write an epic and I think she succeeded handily. This book is full of emotion in the best way possible. And I think it does an amazing job giving women from one of the most popular stories of all time such dimension and intrigue that they lack in their source material. I also think that, even though each individual story was different in its subject matter, they were all so relatable in their grief and humor. I also couldn’t help thinking of Gaza and the current socio-political landscape of America right now. The idea that these “great” men make these over arching decisions that affect women and POC is one that I really resonated with. I also really resonated with the idea that little people can be important me hero’s in their own right and just because the world maybe doesn’t want to hear a story doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s unworthy of being told.

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crusoe's review

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Positives. I couldn't put down this book. How could I when this retelling was so fresh, so compellingly written? I love when retellings bring something new to the table and this novel for that both in style (by alternating between POV's until they had each reached their conclusion or by alternating the form in which the story was told, such as through the letters of Penelope) and perspective. The prose had a brutal beauty to it and did not sugarcoat the effects of war.

This book, in a sense, is not what you might expect from a feministic retelling; these women are critical and jealous of each other, are absorbed with centering the loss of men in their lives. They have very little agency simply because they are an opressed group in a society where they are very rarely seen as more than property. But, with the little agency that they have, they do everything they can to survive- or die when that is the more tolerable option. They are not more dishonourable -not more honourable either- than the men who the stories usually focus on. They are resilient, they will survive, and so will their stories.

Negatives. This book is very bleak, war always is, which may or may not be a negative aspect depending on who you are asking. There are very few moments of hope to be found, especially near the end, which can make it a tough read.

Quote. When a war was ended, men lost their lives. But the women lost everything else.

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