Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Circe by Madeline Miller

20 reviews

romancebookslover's review

challenging dark emotional inspiring sad slow-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Mental illness, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Rape

Moderate: Abandonment

maren_hemsath's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective slow-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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Abandonment, Torture, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Death, Mental illness, and Death of parent

Minor: Alcohol and War

olia_k21's review

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Rape, Abandonment, and Sexual assault

horizonous's review against another edition

adventurous reflective slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Rape, Blood, Animal death, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Grief, Mental illness, Torture, War, and Death

Minor: Bullying, Child death, Self harm, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Infidelity, Sexual content, and Vomit

◦ Death = incl. father, husband, lover
◦ Mental illness = Depression
◦ Pregnancy = Child birth
◦ Sexual content = incl. zoophilia

sonlight21's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.75

This book was full of beautiful prose and written in a way that is unusual and I have not seen before but enjoyed immensely!!!! 

I really enjoyed the retelling of a classic character from a different view point. It showed the horror and injustice of the original tale. Warning if you are interested in reading this book there are many content warnings and triggers that you should take the time to look into. It is not a lighthearted book and deals with some very heavy topics.
It also has a strong feminist voice.

It was a very interesting, enjoyable and much needed retelling but do not jump in without doing the research and making sure it is something you can read :)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Mental illness, Emotional abuse, and Self harm

Minor: Rape

aditi_801's review

adventurous emotional informative reflective relaxing tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

I LOVE this book so much. It took me forever to read as my tbr is only growing bigger day by day but I just enjoyed it so thoroughly. Our baybe Circe was actually the sweetest and bravest. Sure she liked to turn men into pigs for a period of time but who wouldn't do the same? The stories of the people she encountered were just so entertaining. Meeting Medea, Daedalus, baby Icarus, and Ariadne were such shocks to me and I loved how Circe grew everytime she experienced more of life. The ending was also just so good. Expected but also not expected. Seeing her grow from someone who was constantly stepped on when she lived with her family to a powerful and independent woman was my favorite part. She was alone for so long, but she grew with it. This book was just so filled with life, the writing was beautiful, and I was honestly never bored. It took me a few days to read because I was annotating it but I bet I would have devoured it otherwise. This book did so much justice to Circe's character in Greek Mythology that is known as beautiful but seductress witch who decievingly turns men to pigs. The way she was displayed in Circe made her human.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Sexism, Pregnancy, Death, and Mental illness

Minor: Sexual assault and Rape

ldorina's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful slow-paced

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

4.5

Greek mythology, Madeline Miller's  writing, female main character, Hermes appears. Just perfect.
Favourite quotes:

"That is one thing gods and mortals share. When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world."

"This was how mortals found fame, I thought. Through practise and diligence, tending their skills like gardens until they glowed beneath the sun. But gods are born of ichor and nectar, their excellences already bursting from their fingertips. So they find their fame by proving what they can mar: destroying cities, starting wars, breeding plagues and monsters. All that smoke and savour rising so delicately from our altars. It leaves only ash behind."

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Content Warnings

Minor: Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, and War

minche's review

hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

2.75 or 3/5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Rape, and Sexual assault

orlagal's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Cannibalism, Child death, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Incest, Mental illness, Murder, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, and Violence

caidyn's review

emotional hopeful tense fast-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

4.75

The full joint review of this (where Chantel and I dig into the book more) can be found here!

CW: PTSD, attempted rape, rape, and murder

I want to get this off my chest first: I didn’t think that this was as good as The Song of Achilles.

The prose was just as great, the characters were interesting, but it didn’t have the emotional impact I wanted it to. I wanted to have my heart ripped out and my gut twisted up. But it didn’t happen. I enjoyed the story, but I didn’t really feel emotionally attached the whole time.

Now that’s out of the way, on to the rest.

I’m not familiar with Circe’s mythology outside of The Odyssey. That’s it. And I barely even knew that when we got to that part of the story, actually. I found it so enlightening to see just how many myths converge with her own, even tangentially. It kept me interested and intrigued to see where it was going because of my ignorance. I genuinely wanted to see where the story would go.

But, there wasn’t a strong story involved. The plot was a character study. It showed how she changed throughout her life, leading her to the decision she makes at the end of the book. And then the story ends.

I think that this could have been structured differently to make it a bit more interesting and grabbing. Again, I really enjoyed it, but when I look back on it I think that it could have had more oomph throughout the book that might have gotten me more attached to the characters. Because while I found Circe a very sympathetic character, I didn’t fall in love with her like I did with Patroclus or Achilles.

This book is a completely different book than TSoA. It’s good, but I had wanted a bit more. Perhaps with a reread, I’ll appreciate the book a bit more since I won’t be waiting for something that won’t happen.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Rape, and Sexual assault