Reviews with content warning for Vomit - La canzone di Achille

My heart has not healed and never will. <SPOILER :Patroculus deserves better, I just want to give him a warm and soft comforting hug. He did not deserve it >

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lana72905's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.5

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maggiefujinuma's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

I read this book because I was jealous that mlm´s had a book like this that was so loved and I wanted to see what the hype was about. Naturally, my hate-reading led to not being able to put it down, and when the emotional parts came, they hit me full in the face. Beautiful writing. I deeply enjoyed the descriptions of feelings, especially romantic and distraught ones. The love was undeniable.

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arlaubscher's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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mim_flowers's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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iamlexy's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective sad fast-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

5.0

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erebus53's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional informative medium-paced

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

3.75

I picked up this book because it's been talked about around the place and seems popular. I'm sure that my interpretation of the work is coloured by many years of reading Rick Riordan's youth fiction about Greek myths. My takeaway is that although it's historic fiction it .. feels more fictiony than historic. Yes we do have actual gods playing a roll so we could call it mythic realism, but as some folk have pointed out, it's more just a homoerotic love story. I'm ok with that : )

I think the book is fun but not super deep. Knowing roughly how the story goes before I delved into the book, leaves me wondering if I can even mention some parts of it without it being spoilers - what is the common knowledge here? Is it ok to mention which characters die when? I mean, this is ancient history ... so all the characters are dead by now (except maybe the gods).

This telling is in the first person, from the point of view of Patroclus who is the dearest love of Achilles.

--pedant mode--
I feel like it's spelled incorrectly, surely that's a "k"? Wiki says conventionally it's Patroclus but from Pátroklos ... wow there's argument about how that ought to be pronounced so that is a rabbit hole - but now I feel mollified.. it isn't just me being finicky. OK, fine, I'm being finicky. While I'm finicking, I kept raising an eyebrow when the author refers to heroes being painted onto vases. My high school classics led me to believe that black figure vases came way after the Trojan War, and red figure vases even later than that, so references to those forms seems anachronistic.

.. also, I get that Achilles is supposed to be trusting and oblivious, but he should have known there was something suss about a guy trying to marry him to a priestess of Artemis. I mean Artemis's whole deal is virgin purity. That whole bit seemed like something fishy was afoot.

*climbs out of rabbit hole*
--end pedant mode--

The reason the two men like each other seems completely arbitrary because the author doesn't build that much. Patroclus is a devoted lover and sees his god-boyfriend through rosy tinted glasses. I find it really amusing that some people find this sweet, and others are nauseated by his witless swooning.

As far as this narration of the audiobook is concerned, I find it really strange that the narrator doesn't alter his affect for voicing young people. I was about 5 minutes into a conversation before I was reminded that this was a conversation between young children rather than adults. I got the same sort of feeling when the character of Pyrrhus is introduced as a pubescent youth. I honestly think there should be some sort of primer for Audiobook narrators where they learn how words like wretched are said.

OK, I'm going there. This is the first book I have ever read in the first person where the narrator dies and keeps telling the story. At first I wondered what the heck was happening because he was clearly deceased and yet, still talking. After a while it became clearer that according to the Greek practices around the passing of the dead to the underworld, he had moved on out of his body, but was still kicking around watching the proceedings. OK fine.. I'll let you have it. It still felt more clumsy than it ought to have.

It was an easy read and coming to the end of it, the themes of social change, and how things are perceived by future generations, are aired more explicitly. The story is true to the Greek trope of sage council that is ignored. This account is subverting the idea that glory is something that one earns by war and murder, and is focused on the idea that a person can be remembered for more than their body-count. All in all, I don't think the book is elegant, but it is interesting.

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