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A review by brogan7
Circe by Madeline Miller
adventurous
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
3.75
So usually 4 is my cut off, meaning 4 and up, I recommend it, 3.75 and below, I'm just shy of recommending it, (or less than that, if a lower number).
Circe has me on the fence, because initially, I loved it. I thought it was absolutely brilliant, how she portrayed the gods' world with the per pective gods would have. She describes Glaucos being made immortal as a wholly horrible transformation, the man sounds physically repulsive, but Circe is still attracted to him because... gods' standards of beauty are not human ones!
She makes this different world come to life in such a magical way, from the very first pages.
And then. A few things happen: triggers beyond what this reader wants to read, and, a fracturing of plot that is hard to follow. It feels like Miller is faithful to Greek mythology (I didn't know that much about it going into it, so I'm surmising this is the case)...but it feels like she's doing exactly what she is: hopping from story to story without a single story really linking them together.
This is a creative plotline, but it makes for some difficulty in staying motivated to read, in the middle parts (especially if you don't like the gory bits, because there are lots of them).
I can't resolve some parts of what I feel about this book. She does the horrors of war well, but does that mean you want to read that? I don't want to ... I really don't want to.
She's all over power dynamics...again, hard to read though. How people use other people (or gods) for their own petty self-aggrandizement. It's how some people are, yes. It doesn't make me want to know about it in detail...unless they were to learn something, and other than Circe, no one really does. (Zeus, her brother, her father, Odysseus....how many fail to learn.)
I want a little more hope in my literature than that.
However, then she comes with the climax, the dénouement and the end of the story....I don't know if that's even what all those parts are called, but the end of the book pulls magic again, and I do think it's such an amazing book.
Hard call on this one. I'm glad I read it. I can't whole-heartedly recommend it.
Oh yes, and the relationships...ok the men are either pure fantasy or pure hell. I lost my capacity to believe in the romantic stories, I felt myself losing interest in that altogether. So it's hard to say....when that's a big aspect of the book...why did it start to fall flat?(Which made the ending a little flat as well.)
So overall: a very strong medium? I rarely feel so conflicted over a book.
Circe has me on the fence, because initially, I loved it. I thought it was absolutely brilliant, how she portrayed the gods' world with the per pective gods would have. She describes Glaucos being made immortal as a wholly horrible transformation, the man sounds physically repulsive, but Circe is still attracted to him because... gods' standards of beauty are not human ones!
She makes this different world come to life in such a magical way, from the very first pages.
And then. A few things happen: triggers beyond what this reader wants to read, and, a fracturing of plot that is hard to follow. It feels like Miller is faithful to Greek mythology (I didn't know that much about it going into it, so I'm surmising this is the case)...but it feels like she's doing exactly what she is: hopping from story to story without a single story really linking them together.
This is a creative plotline, but it makes for some difficulty in staying motivated to read, in the middle parts (especially if you don't like the gory bits, because there are lots of them).
I can't resolve some parts of what I feel about this book. She does the horrors of war well, but does that mean you want to read that? I don't want to ... I really don't want to.
She's all over power dynamics...again, hard to read though. How people use other people (or gods) for their own petty self-aggrandizement. It's how some people are, yes. It doesn't make me want to know about it in detail...unless they were to learn something, and other than Circe, no one really does. (Zeus, her brother, her father, Odysseus....how many fail to learn.)
I want a little more hope in my literature than that.
However, then she comes with the climax, the dénouement and the end of the story....I don't know if that's even what all those parts are called, but the end of the book pulls magic again, and I do think it's such an amazing book.
Hard call on this one. I'm glad I read it. I can't whole-heartedly recommend it.
Oh yes, and the relationships...ok the men are either pure fantasy or pure hell. I lost my capacity to believe in the romantic stories, I felt myself losing interest in that altogether. So it's hard to say....when that's a big aspect of the book...why did it start to fall flat?
So overall: a very strong medium? I rarely feel so conflicted over a book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual violence, Violence, and War
Moderate: Murder
Minor: Incest