Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - Il canto di Calliope

Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Il canto di Calliope by Natalie Haynes

71 reviews

dummehure's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

As always an amazing take of a story of greek mythology that has been told countless times. What I appreciate most about Madeline Miller's retellings is the freedom she gives herself to fill in the gabs and create a story that feels real and thought out from beginning to end.
What I especially loved about this one, aside from the authors note at the end, was the language. She has such a beautiful writing style that completely contracts the horrific content of the story and she uses that contrast to shock the readers.
I will be rereading this book whenever I get the opportunity in the future.
Again, thank you for this masterpiece!!!

Content Warnings

kyeruhh's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

I struggled with this book in the beginning and ended up putting it down for a while. However, once I actually got into it, I ended up really enjoying it. Certain parts were tough to get through due to the content, but that’s par for the course when discussing women being enslaved as spoils of war.

Content Warnings

amh9121's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

marareading's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense slow-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? Yes

3.25

This book is a beautiful retelling of the Trojan war from the women's perspective. It is a very unique retelling, and I love that the author took the time to write a book that left out all the stories we don't normally get in history. This is one of the few books where I recommend reading the afterword. It is short, and packed with information about how and why this book exists.

I did love this book. given that the women weren't actively fighting the battles, it means that the stories are more disjointed, so it almost feels like short stories put together. It all does come together in the end. It is beautifully written. You can feel the wrath, pain, and intensity through these stories.

If you love retellings, this is a must read for a new take on a traditional story.

Content Warnings

elizabeth_lepore's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional sad medium-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? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

thegr1mreader's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

jeannekmele's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

cws: rape, child death, slavery, war, grief/trauma, genocide mention, spoilers

An exceptional collection of nearly universal tragedy across its heroines, pyrrhic victories are the norm for women whose darkest moments shine with vibrant human spirit on the pages of A THOUSAND SHIPS.

So often left footnotes--wives, mothers, sisters, sluts and daughters written to live, die, and love for the storied men of old--any background knowledge of the classical canon will lend an unerring hand to the conclusions we know these women will come to. Yet you cannot help but root for their success, or their peace if no such thing exist; despite the ends long since written for them, their human resilience and fragility and the womanly grit behind it all almost feels as if history could rewrite itself this time.
It doesn't, of course, but this in of itself is the devoted intersection of care and craft.

Though ATS is tragedy from the first page to last, the deluge of misery and loss roils and settles with the comfortable shape of a story until you're left with a sense of resolution that is not gratifying, but it is real. And that is the way of tragedy, trauma, and war: these things cannot be reversed, nor smoothed over, nor sated.

Andromache's family, first husband and son are dead; but she has another husband, another son, and her freedom; perhaps that must be enough. Penelope loses twenty years of her life, marriage, queenship and motherhood waiting for a husband who never comes home to her. But there is a like man in their bed, and his name is Odysseus, and perhaps that will have to be enough.

What of Eris, the instigator? What of Helen, the adulteress, the end of a kingdom? It is very easy, in a song about war, to glorify and vilify to the whims of one's own biases, or heroes, or chosen themes. I don't believe you will find such binary in this book.

A mother kills children to avenge her own. Slave-owners and rapists (we'll save the discussion on rape, duious consent, and power in the classical canon for another time) show gentleness and provision to their victims, even when regarded as property. The selfish goddesses who set a decade of devastation and a death toll unnumbered are, themselves, steered from the shadows by intentions as selfless and pragmatic as they are genocidal.

I will quote Natalie Haynes' afterword: 'Survivors, victims, perpetrators: these roles are not always separate. People can be wounded and wounding at the same time, or at different times in the same life.'

It would be erroneous to go into A THOUSAND SHIPS expecting anything less than complex women with rich inner lives under extraneous circumstances. In the man-made disaster that is war, it becomes impractical and impossible to keep an orderly measure of right and wrong. The human condition warps into something immeasurable under such extreme duress. Though by no means a soothing read, I nonetheless devoured ATS as I haven't done with a book in a long time.

I will close with this: Grief is a long-lived creature with many faces that may come in any amount or combination at any time, in three days or five years, or decades hence. Grief is angry, and loud, and dead-eyed; it is wasting away and endless tears and twists in our chests that by right of anatomy shouldn't twist there; it is jealousy and accusation and cruelty and violence and submission and insanity.
Grief is ugly, and so often in contemporary western culture it is unsightly and to be repressed. In women, grief is mockingly anticipated, oppressively levied, and mercilessly culled. A THOUSAND SHIPS is an excellent read across the board, but for those who are processing grief and trauma, who may be unsure how to (especially women), it is a cathartic and humanizing portrait of the externally-inflicted and yet worst, most unacceptable parts of ourselves that are too big for our bodies, and too loud for the world.

Content Warnings