A review by gisl
Galatea by Madeline Miller

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Very dark and pretty depressing. Institutionalized woman who has spent every single moment of her life since she came to life being sexually abused and objectified (some sort of irony there, where she’s more objectified when alive than when she was a statue, idk). She is also medically abused, physically abused, and kept locked up in a dark room away from her child, where she’s forced (by threat or by sedation) to lay in bed until her husband comes to rape her. It has a bittersweet ending, but overall was very very short and left far too many questions unanswered and the world as a whole felt vague and undefined. That might be the point, since the main character wasn’t allowed to explore and nobody spoke to her to explain things or just chat. Still, I hoped for something a bit more substantial; This almost felt like just trauma porn.
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