TL;DR: A Greek Mythology retelling, Circe by Madeline Miller is a deep discovery into who Circe is and why she did the things she did.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 3/4
Circe is the daughter of Helios, the God of the sun (Titan). She lives with the gods and only wants to be seen, to be valued, and to fit in amongst the others in her world. When Zeus discovers she has the power of witchcraft, she is banished to an island away from all she knows and loves. And it is there that she has her greatest adventures.
This book was highly rated on Booktok and that gave me pause. There weren’t many books that readers like on Booktok that I found to be as good as they did, so Circe was a pleasant surprise. I’ve always loved Greek mythology and Madeline Miller makes Circe and her mythos fully alive in this retelling of her tale. For those reasons and more, I give it 4.75 stars.
The Plot
Circe is the daughter of the Titan Helios and lives a very long life amongst Helios and the rest of her family. But she isn’t pretty, powerful, or possessing of anything that anyone would want, so she is ignored, laughed at, and lonely.
When she discovers she has the ability to do witchcraft and confesses to changing a human she fell in love with to a god, she is banished by Zeus to a deserted island. There, she practices her witchcraft, tames wild beasts, and has adventures with many figures in Greek mythology.
However, her past comes calling and she has to decide which side she’ll choose – the life of a God or the life of mortal. Will she choose what she knows or will she choose for love?
What I liked & liked less
I really liked this book. It took a story that has already been told and added depth, emotion, and consequences.
Circe is flawed and makes poor choices based on those flaws. But she also learns from them and comes to realize that she can’t just be like the gods she grew up with and come out whole.
She grows as a person, a witch, and a god. She also creates a life that is at one point satisfying and then becomes unsatisfying as she experiences more life. That makes her journey have even more depth than it would’ve if she returned home and resumed her life as if nothing happened.
The people and gods she interacts with are interesting and also flawed. The way the gods play with mortals is shown in stark relief and the reasons they do so also make sense within Greek mythology.
My mythology knowledge is rusty, so I have to assume she followed what exists already, but maybe other readers who know it better feel differently. I can’t speak it either way.
What I didn’t like is how short the romance is with Telemachus. It’s as if the author figured she’d already done it with Odysseus and doesn’t need to retread it, but I needed more. I wanted more. I wanted to see it develop and grow, rather than feel like it was a carbon copy of what came before.
To Sum Up (Too Late!)
If you like Greek mythology and don’t mind character growth of a god, you’ll like this story. If you like watching an ageless character learn from their mistakes and maybe make more like the ones that came before you’ll like this story. There is sexual assault in this book, but it wasn’t overly done or overly described, and there are repercussions for Circe, so I didn’t mind it. For all those reason and more, I gave this 4.75 stars.
About the Author(s)
Madeline Miller was born in Boston and grew up in New York City and Philadelphia. She attended Brown University, where she earned her BA and MA in Classics. For the last ten years she has been teaching and tutoring Latin, Greek and Shakespeare to high school students. She has also studied at the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought, and in the Dramaturgy department at Yale School of Drama, where she focused on the adaptation of classical texts to modern forms. She currently lives in Cambridge, MA, where she teaches and writes. The Song of Achilles is her first novel.
If you wish to purchase this book, pick your vendor of choice here, or just cave to the man and get it from Amazon here.
Originally published on Feedium. This fills in the Award Winner square on my Fantasy Bingo 2022 card.