Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - Circe

Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Circe by Madeline Miller

370 reviews

hannahbaird2023's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

Madeleine Miller has an incredible talent for narrative. Like Song of Achilles, this blew me away.

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mairiairi's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

the character growth in this book is freaking unbelievable. Hated everyone up until the last quarter of the book. Worth the wait, bc once I got to the end everyone was relatable lol

Book felt like it was slogging a bit at the beginning, wasn't interesting, everyone was a completely self-absorbed, narcissistic jerk including Circe. Then she gets a couple hundred years under her belt and becomes more self-aware, growing out of the teenager stage into the young adult stage, and it's so organic and natural that I didn't even notice it until I read over the quotes I'd posted and realized there's a huge difference between the first, second, and third of the book. I def found her growing on me and ended up rooting for her by the end of the book (which is crazy considering how weak and spineless she was at the beginning). It was really really well done.

The writing kind of reminds me of Hamnet, though probably more flowery and descriptive, but definitely not as pretentious as Wolf Hall. This was subtle enough that you had to think about it and read slower than usual, but it wasn't so subtle that you felt dumb for not understanding, and not getting anything out of the book. The writing also didn't get in the way of the story at all, imo.

Had some really good morals/lessons, and some thought-provoking takes on human nature, existence of man, etc. and I wish I'd had a physical copy so I could annotate. Or a teacher to tell me to write a paper on it. Fascinating stuff fr fr

I did get a lil bit bored until about halfway - it was a bit tedious, because she's stuck on an island, but definitely not anywhere near as bad as A Gentleman in Moscow, this actually had a storyline lol it did leave me feeling like I was reading one of those multi-generational books and there's a reason I never read those. To her credit, I think it definitely sells you on the "she's centuries old, exiled on an island" without dragging or being boring like you'd expect.

Definitely want to get a physical copy, reread, and annotate everything. Too many relatable characters, but most of them see their flaws and work on it so that by the end of the story they've changed and are far healthier than where they started. Anger management, trouble with trust and vulnerability, dealing with loss or loneliness...there is so much they either grow through OR recognize in someone else as being bad, and seeing my own problems represented in a book was so encouraging to me. I don't have to keep doing this to myself and those around me, don't keep hurting people just because you're too proud to admit you're the source of the hurt - these gods suck, but I don't have to lol

So interesting that she is drawn to humans time and again. Those are the only ones she's interested in, everyone else is a side hustle. Why? Because she's drawn to authenticity and weakness, being deemed weak and naive to the family of gods that she was born into. And so much more. But I have work tmr and it's already 3:30am so imma leave it at that and if any of this piqued your interest then just go read it already (it's subtle enough that even if you're under 13 it's fine, but you won't enjoy it so wait till you're like 15+ << only saying this bc my lil sister follows me HAHAHA sup tia)

also: there were some long quotes I liked that didn't fit in the update thing, so I'm leaving them as comments under this review lol

(also also, note that I wrote right before the book gets good:

yk what I hate? The fact that everyone is an idiot. Absolute selfish, self-involved, narcissistic idiot. First Athena, she won't even explain anything to Circe even though if she had, then Circe would have known better and wouldn't have done all that to protect her son. Then the son, for being so bullheaded and unhappy about his place in life that he won't listen to common sense despite someone who's been around for HUNDREDS OF YEARS telling him about the prophecy. Then stupid Odysseus for being so angry that he won't even take two seconds to listen to a literal child tell him why he's landed on Odysseus' precious land, honestly it's his fault for being such a stupid guy and getting in such a rage over a little kid landing on his island, like brotherrrrr he caused that, the son wasn't even tryna harm anyone and he had permission from O's son. Like O, if that makes you mad, go take it up with your son, not your guest you idiot. Honestly that part was so insufferable, I couldn't even bring myself to care about anyone involved, they were all stupid.

)

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