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4.25 AVERAGE
4.25 AVERAGE
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
“The world is an ugly place. We must live in it.”
It is difficult to chose a favourite episode. Very beautifully written, the perfect book for the Greek Mythology lovers.
I felt I was reading The Odyssey but with a twist of modern writing. We grow up learning about Greek mythology through the Gods and Heroes’s perspective so to see Circe’s part in all of it and see her point of view and her accomplishments is a breath of fresh air.
Through the hardships of her twisted family, we witness her grow, learn, make mistakes, attempt to fix them, and atone for them. We see her experience love, loss, and yearning, and most importantly, we see her fight for her happiness and for what she wants — all the while learning how powerful she truly is.
It is difficult to chose a favourite episode. Very beautifully written, the perfect book for the Greek Mythology lovers.
I felt I was reading The Odyssey but with a twist of modern writing. We grow up learning about Greek mythology through the Gods and Heroes’s perspective so to see Circe’s part in all of it and see her point of view and her accomplishments is a breath of fresh air.
Through the hardships of her twisted family, we witness her grow, learn, make mistakes, attempt to fix them, and atone for them. We see her experience love, loss, and yearning, and most importantly, we see her fight for her happiness and for what she wants — all the while learning how powerful she truly is.
wow! i regret that i was not a reader of the percy jackson series when i was younger, because this book taught me how modern retellings of mythology can really help one understand it. otherwise, i feel like i have to put in a concentrated effort to memorise names, heroic deeds and acts of spite, whereas now the tales of scylla, pasiphaë and aeëtes (amongst many others) are ingrained in my mind through miller's beautiful prose and the imagery it conjured.
her writing was so beautiful, and i really tried to savour every sentence. the part that stuck with me most was when circe spoke to prometheus, before he was taken to the caucusus. such beauty and dignity in face of the gods' wrath.
'how do they bear it?' 'as best they can'
below are some sentences that are not properly linked to one another, as i am typing with one hand and it is hindering the flow of my thoughts (i got stung by one of my dad's bees on my left hand).
the idea of transformation was very poignant, and the ending felt perfect. i felt anger at the violent, entitled men, the swine, and felt the violation and helplessness of circe. she wasn't perfect, but i admired her self-awareness. her brief romance with daedalus was beautiful - i could only dream of a love with someone who can create such wonders, who has such an intelligent mind (and such dextrous hands!) i read in other reviews that people weren't fans of the ending with telegonus and circe together, but it is greek mythology, and anyway, i had felt myself rooting for them. i'm glad she found peace. i feel the book also conveyed to me some of what it must feel to exist for eternity. peace, but also boredom. no wonder the gods got so frisky.
her writing was so beautiful, and i really tried to savour every sentence. the part that stuck with me most was when circe spoke to prometheus, before he was taken to the caucusus. such beauty and dignity in face of the gods' wrath.
'how do they bear it?' 'as best they can'
below are some sentences that are not properly linked to one another, as i am typing with one hand and it is hindering the flow of my thoughts (i got stung by one of my dad's bees on my left hand).
the idea of transformation was very poignant, and the ending felt perfect. i felt anger at the violent, entitled men, the swine, and felt the violation and helplessness of circe. she wasn't perfect, but i admired her self-awareness. her brief romance with daedalus was beautiful - i could only dream of a love with someone who can create such wonders, who has such an intelligent mind (and such dextrous hands!) i read in other reviews that people weren't fans of the ending with telegonus and circe together, but it is greek mythology, and anyway, i had felt myself rooting for them. i'm glad she found peace. i feel the book also conveyed to me some of what it must feel to exist for eternity. peace, but also boredom. no wonder the gods got so frisky.
adventurous
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I remember reading The Song of Achilles years ago and loving it so I don’t know why it took me so long to decide to read this because it’s another winner for me - I literally finished this in a day. I adore Miller’s writing and the way the story flows with a more show-and-less tell approach. I went in not knowing a single thing about the protagonist, Circe, and finished the story with a newfound appreciation for her character. Because it’s a Greek mythology retelling, the story is told chronologically and obviously starts with Circe’s childhood, so readers will follow her journey as she grows up and older.
Circe isn’t perfect like her siblings - she’s not as beautiful, talented, powerful and in short, she’s her parents’ least favourite child, and she doesn’t have any friends, so she has always felt sort of alienated from the rest of her kind. This is the start of the premise and root of most of her actions, and her character growth happens gradually as she learns more about herself, taps into her true power, and forms relationships with other characters that would help her gain a deeper understanding of how differently the worlds of gods and mortals are.
Most of Circe’s most significant relationships are with humans such as Daedalus, Odysseus and Telemachus, and I am a huge fan of the bittersweet feelings that Circe experiences while she’s with them, knowing that they could never last because she would outlive all of them. Her relationship with Daedalus in particular was brief but impactful and it gave me one of my favourite quotes in the story:
Circe isn’t perfect like her siblings - she’s not as beautiful, talented, powerful and in short, she’s her parents’ least favourite child, and she doesn’t have any friends, so she has always felt sort of alienated from the rest of her kind. This is the start of the premise and root of most of her actions, and her character growth happens gradually as she learns more about herself, taps into her true power, and forms relationships with other characters that would help her gain a deeper understanding of how differently the worlds of gods and mortals are.
Most of Circe’s most significant relationships are with humans such as Daedalus, Odysseus and Telemachus, and I am a huge fan of the bittersweet feelings that Circe experiences while she’s with them, knowing that they could never last because she would outlive all of them. Her relationship with Daedalus in particular was brief but impactful and it gave me one of my favourite quotes in the story:
I had no right to claim him, I knew it. But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.
Like are you kidding me? I honestly had to put down my e-reader and just stare at the ceiling for a minute after reading this. I’ll share my favourite quotes for Odysseus and Telemachus too. Respectively:
He was another knife, I could feel it. A different sort, but a knife still. I did not care. I thought: give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for.
(…)
A knife I had named him, but I saw that he was sliced to the bone.
Less than a month we had spent together, yet he seemed to know me better than anyone who had ever walked the world.
(…)
He said, “Then we will go back. We will go back until you are satisfied.”
It was so simple. If you want it, I will do it. If it would make you happy, I will go with you. Is there a moment that a heart cracks? But a cracked heart was not enough, and I had grown wise enough to know it.
(…)
He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.
From these quotes, it’s clear just how much Circe changes over the course of the story, and it’s important for me to highlight that these relationships are not the main focus of the story. In fact, the story is very much driven by Circe’s nuanced character development as she grows her skills and abilities as a powerful witch, a self-sustaining exiled woman who tames beasts and transforms men who are pigs into actual pigs (really liked this arc of the story - female rage FTW!), and becomes a single mother who defies the gods to protect her son, Telegonus.
The ending was really good because it ties everything up neatly and we get a glimpse of the happy ending that every relevant character deserves -
Her relationships with her kind, on the other hand, give her a lot of grief but they’re also the catalyst to her discovering her powers. Next, Circe’s relationship with other female characters are mostly negative but I would also argue that they’re more nuanced. One ill-fated relationship in particular is with Scylla, and I was glad how Circe regretted her actions and did whatever she could to make things right in the end. I also think her interactions with her sister, Pasiphaë, in the later part of the story is interesting too, because it sheds more light on her sister’s actions who she always thought was just cruel and manipulative, but Pasiphaë was also reclaiming some of her power in a patriarchal society. Then we have Circe’s relationship with Penelope, Odysseus’s wife - I liked it because there was a cause and effect that eventually made them sort of friends who understood each other.
Also I have to give a huge shoutout to Trygon, the stingray leviathan! He was kind of a funny really small side character to me but I liked how he extended his kindness to Circe.
I did have a slight issue with some parts of the story though. I don’t know if it was just me or not but there were some scenes that didn’t transition well or were explained too vaguely that I had to re-read the sentences a few times just to make sure I didn’t miss any information beforehand. For example, there was a scene where Apollo had approached Circe to give her a prophecy, and many years later an Olympian showed up at her doorstep to give her yet another prophecy - this time around, the Olympian was Hermes but the whole time I was thinking it was Apollo until Hermes’s name was mentioned… and I don’t know if it was just my reading comprehension but I swear I was imagining Trygon as a completely different sea creature, and only knew he was a stingray because it was mentioned towards the end of the book. So those were some small things that took me out of the story for a bit but overall I really enjoyed this book.
Similar to Song of Achilles, Circe is easy to read, and heavy with the descriptive, flowing writing style of Miller. It took a while to love the main character, but the character development is strong and enjoyable to read.
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes