A review by ed_moore
Circe by Madeline Miller

emotional reflective 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? It's complicated

3.75

“I thought once that gods were the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands”

‘Circe’ is Miller’s reimagining of the story of the exiled titan witch, building her story and motives beyond the days Odysseus spent on her island in ‘The Odyssey’. Unlike ‘The song of Achilles’, which I will look back to a lot when considering ‘Circe’, Miller didn’t have nearly as much source material to retell hence to build a narrative a lot of creative freedom is used of which gives Circe realistic motives, a humanising backstory and fills an absence in her conclusion, however in patching the holes of the life of an immortal titaness Miller is forced to tell a story over hundreds of years, leaving many episodes seem fragmented as years of exile pass between them and characters come and go, their mortal lives outlived. As a consequence of such ‘Circe’ felt very fractured at times and the only characters aside from the eponymous heroine to have a complete character arc is Odysseus, of whom’s appearance and the shifting perception of his character very much elevated the book as the many chapters of build-up to the events of ‘The Odyssey’ I did find myself struggling through. Circe’s relationship with Odysseus and then Penelope and Telemachus absolutely redeemed the book for me from a first half that I found generally underwhelming. 

This may be fault of the expectations I had after ‘The Song of Achilles’, for Miller’s prose didn’t feel alike to the narration I had previously enjoyed. ‘Circe’ was much less poetic, perhaps due to the fact that a love story was not the focus of the book, however nonetheless the beauty of Miller’s language seemed absent. Miller succeeds in giving Circe a story, but the very undertaking of such resulted in drawbacks.