Reviews with content warning for Pedophilia - The Silence of the Girls

This book does a wonderful job of showing us how patriarchy harms both women and men. It's a retelling of Achilles' story of the Battle of Troy from the perspective of his bed slave, Briseis. Their horrific and very sad relationship is explored earnestly. It's not a story about love, it's about two people pushed into bed and how they grieve immense loss not together but side-by-side. In different ways they are both denied the ability to process these emotions. They both grapple with their anger at the wasteful and pointless reasons for their loss. The loneliness and pain they both experience come from two hands of the same body, patriarchy. I think the way this is shown so paralleled throughout story, not in comparison to one another, is what makes this such brilliant feminist literature.

And, of course considering everything else, this book is a wonderful example of how we can tell stories with even the extremes of sexual violence, and tell them well without gratuitousness nor overly graphic. I did not once feel that there was no need for a particular sex/rape scene, when they were there, it added to the story.

The 3 main characters in this book are loveable (and 2 very much despiseable) in a very complicated and heart wrenching way. But you'll definately enjoy spending time with them and hearing their story, I would 100% recommend this book.

Content Warnings

indigoimpulse's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

i actually really liked the fact that briseis wasn’t a perfect character and that she’s so judgemental of others around her, men and women alike - i feel like given her circumstances you can’t exactly expect her to act like a saint . her narration was very raw which i found gave her personality .

however the book promised me a story from briseis’ pov so i didn’t really appreciate so much of the book being taken up by achilles’ pov - this author writes grief excellently so his sections were great but it kind of took away from the fact that this was supposed to be briseis’ story . i don’t really think you can call this a feminist novel but i enjoyed it nonetheless

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amyam's review

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dark emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

‘What will they make of us, the people of those unimaginably distant times? One thing I do know: they won't want the brutal reality of conquest and slavery. They won't want to be told about the massacres of men and boys, the enslavement of women and girls. They won't want to know we were living in a r*** camp. No, they'll go for something altogether softer. A love story, perhaps? I just hope they manage to work out who the lovers were.’

I really enjoyed this book, I loved how it stuck so closely to the original myths/stories. Every character came with flaws and there was depth to all the characters. The book both showed the very horrific nature of this period while not being graphic and hard to read.

Briseis provided an interesting focal point for the story as she guided us through her life at the time. Through her fear, her hatred, her confusion and her acceptance. Despite how incredulous her story may be to a modern reader, by hearing her thoughts and point of view her story does make a lot more sense. I enjoyed her wit and at times sarcasm even if she couldn’t say it out loud.

This was an excellent book so much so I immediately went out and bought the second one as I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Content Warnings

jessellisx's review

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Content Warnings

chloj_'s review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

review:

first things first: i love a greek mythology retelling, and this did not disappoint. however, this is something a lot more than simply a mythology retelling. this is such an amazing reflection of womanhood. barker does such a beautiful job of relaying the female experience, with all it’s varying emotions and complexities. depictions of war are typically male dominated; blood, gore and war is so often synonymous for masculinity. while her portrayal of masculinity is complex and very well-written (particularly that of achilles), the raw vulnerability of the story’s women is breathtaking to behold. it was powerful, incredibly moving, and truly (in my opinion) a modern masterpiece.

!!spoilers ahead!!

‘his idea of female beauty was a woman so fat if you slapped her backside in the morning she'd still be jiggling when you got back home for dinner.’ damn me too
‘she could’ve been kind to me and she wasn’t; she could’ve helped me find my feet and she didn’t.’
‘when i got to the door i paused with my hand on the latch and looked back, but she’d already turned away’
the main character’s relationship with femininity is so cleverly written- both her relationship with other women, and with her own femaleness
‘but the dying man, his face wiped clean of pain, cradled his spilling intestines as gently as a mother nurses her newborn child.’
‘“it’ll be alright,” i said, knowing it wouldn’t.’
‘he fucked as quickly as he killed, and for me it was the same thing. something in me died that night.’
the emotions in this book are soooo beautiful done
‘the bed was cold.’ this one sentence is so incredibly powerful
‘no girl ever dressed more carefully for her wedding than achilles for the battlefield’
‘as long as i lived and remembered, [my brothers] weren’t really dead.’
the relationship between briseis and iphis is SO special- it is born entirely from shared tragedy and the kindness only women can share with each other.
that depiction of wasteland at the end of 46/start of 47 is SUCH a beautiful depiction of the waste of female beauty (both physical and mental) at the hands of men
‘the world began to close in around me, and i realised that the songs belonged to my brothers and not me’
‘i always remember that she wept for me when i couldn’t weep for myself’
the list format of the people Achilles killed / how they died is SO good- it really displays how the repeated trauma and war has made tragedy something clinical.
‘before leaving, he always bent down and kissed him in the mouth, though the lips had darkened and begun to retract.’
‘Why him? Why not me? He asks the questions over and over, as if one day they might have a different answer, and the burden of guilt be lifted at last.’
achilles grief is written so beautifully
‘and i do what countless women before me had been forced to. i spread my legs for the man who killed my husband and brothers.’
‘now my own story can begin’

Content Warnings

readingoccasionally89's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

it started off well and the change of perspective (to the women’s perspective) is definitely a plus for me, but it was WORK reading this book, especially in the middle.
one thing that bothered me aswell was how the relationship between patroclus and achilles is described, especially because i read this after tsoa, (which i definitely liked better.) but that’s just my personal opinion and NOT a flaw of this book.
i think the intention of this book was to show the hopelessness, troubles and crimes in the trojan war from a woman’s perspective, in which pat barker definitely succeeded, but stil i wouldn’t call this book a favourite.

Content Warnings

asternautt's review

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.5

Content Warnings

alexiasophii's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Wow.
This is a hefty book, before anything else, please be careful of the content warnings, they are NOT a lie or minimized, this is a very heavy, graphic and pain-ridden book. However, it is incredible. It's amazingly sad, amazingly painful, but amazing nonetheless.
I might come back and do a bigger review later because I'm still gathering my thoughts, but I really enjoyed this book (I had a nightmare related to this book, that's how well-written it is!) and I'm planning on reading the sequel as soon as possible!

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