Reviews

Circe is a cleverly written novel about the goddess herself and the experiences she endured from her perspective. This novel spans centuries in time with both well-known and new mythological events and experiences Circe must navigate. Circe is shown as a more fully-developed person than in the minor roles she's played in other grand masterworks of classical literature. She perseveres through more hardships than can be imagined and her shere ingenuity and life-experience guides her actions through each trial and tribulation. Through it all, Circe demonstrates how many of us feel at different points in our lives despite never being bestowed with divinity as she has. Just as Circe is more fully realized in this novel, so too are her accompanying characters often the focus of the story when they encounter Circe. All in all, Madeline Miller has crafted a wonderfully detailed novel encompassing more mythology and the human experience than one might expect. If you're a fan of Greek mythology, history, and novels that really flesh out their characters, then I would highly recommend this book!

Content Warnings

alexanicole1128's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

At the beginning of the book I was so attached to the characters and eating up every second. It made me cry and made me not want to put it down. I'm not sure where specifically, but in the middle, it hit a point where I was bored and it was dragging. I think this feeling mainly comes from the repetitiveness. (This is not a spoiler because it is on the back of the book) Circe is exiled to this island and a huge portion of the book follows her daily life and the people that she meets over the centuries which was a little hard to get through cause nothing of significance seemed to happen. The writing is beautiful and it was a good book just wasn't as good as I was expecting. Not as good as the Song of Achilles. This book should be read after the Song of Achilles in my opinion cause there are some spoilers for that book in this one.

tigerlily31's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense slow-paced

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

4.5

Good easy listen

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