Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

Circe Excerpt: The First 3 Chapters by Madeline Miller

94 reviews

chloevienna's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

in reality this is like a 3.99999 but just not quite a 4 star for me (since 4 stars equates to 8/10). really lovely though!! took me awhile to get into, but once i got attached to circe, my love for her was immeasurable. definitely a worthy follow up to soa!!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Rape, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Grief, and Violence

Minor: Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Sexual content, and Sexual violence

xmusicxobsessed's review against another edition

emotional 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

4.25

A contemplative and emotional deep dive into the life of a character who's not always the focus but a reoccurring figure in Greek mythology. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Rape and Alcohol

poubelleboi's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Infidelity, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, and Sexual assault

Minor: Alcoholism, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, and War

laurendenton's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Murder, Blood, and Sexism

Moderate: Alcohol, Body horror, Bullying, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual assault, Torture, Violence, and War

Minor: Animal death, Child death, Infidelity, and Sexual content

ridesthesun's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

5.0

"'It will be alright.'

He does not mean that it will 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."


Absolutely stunning. The brutal beauty and pain of this story and this character's life is heartbreaking, but so gorgeously, gorgeously drawn. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Violence, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Pregnancy, Murder, Infidelity, and Confinement

Moderate: Abandonment, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, and Slavery

reader_in_the_meadow's review against another edition

adventurous emotional inspiring mysterious reflective 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

4.0

The 2018 novel Circe by american novelist Madeline Miller tells the story of the misunderstood Circe, witch of Aiaia and how she became to be one of the most well-known women of ancient greek myths, but takes the story from a whole other point. It is the spiritual sequel to Miller's 2011 novel Song Of Achilles.


The plot of this book revolves around Circe, daughter of the sun titan Helios and the nymps Perse and sister to Pasiphäe, Perses and Äetes. This book tells the story of how she became the witch of Aiaia and all the things she discovered about herself and the people and gods around her. It is a beautiful story filled with powerful women.

However, the set of characters in this book is not necessarily diverse if you ask me. We do have strong female figures but that's just about it. 
But even though there aren't many characters, the characters that are there are just perfectly written. Even if they just show up for a short time, you can tell that Miller really went out there and tried to give them as much personality as possible.

The writing in this book mainly focuses on describing details. We learn so much about the plot and the characters just from the somber and very atmospheric writing style that Miller used in this book. It makes it possible for the reader to completely immerse themselves in the story by not rushing but also not being too slow.
The way the story is told, through the eyes of Circe herself, gives the reader a whole other feeling of being a part of it. We learn so much about the main character just from the way this is written and that is beautiful.

Going forward, a thing that I especially liked was how Miller took many well known ancient greek myths and changed them just a bit to fit into the story she created and that shows how talented she is.

There are not really things that I did not like, but somthing was just missing for me to give it 5 stars.


To conclude, Madeline Miller's novel Circe is a very good and well-written story that I can only recommend to everyone who loves anvient Greece, greek myths, powerful women and beautiful and atmospheric writing.
Still, please take a not of the content warnings for this book, as you always should.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Death, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, and Violence

Minor: War

angele_vergoni's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Grief, Pregnancy, Rape, and Sexual content

Moderate: Alcohol, Animal death, Death of parent, Incest, Slavery, Torture, Violence, and War

chandle5's review against another edition

adventurous inspiring fast-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

Moderate: Sexual content and Sexual violence

Minor: Alcohol

lokiwii's review against another edition

reflective tense 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? No

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Drug use, Pregnancy, Blood, Grief, Death, and Animal death

Moderate: Suicide, Murder, Torture, Bullying, Alcohol, and Self harm

Minor: Rape and Incest

house_of_hannah's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective 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? Yes

3.0

Going into this I essentially thought it was the female version of The Song of Achilles; I was wrong. There is no sapphic story here, and instead we not only get the story of Circe, but Odysseus and his family as well. 

I thought a good chunk of the book would be about Circe honing her craft, but for someone in exile she enouncters a lot of people ! It's mainly a telling of the events, big and small, that happen during her exile until she figures out what she wants from her life. 

Since this is based on a Greek myth, be prepared for the shenanigans of the Gods. A good chunk of characters in this book are complete assholes, as is to be expected. This didn't make the story more interesting though, and I found myself getting a bit bored with it. Circe herself always felt quite softspoken even when she was learning to stand up for herself. 

Overall this is just an average book for me. I was really into the fact that Circe was a witch, but I ended up not having much interest past that. It just ended up feeling repetitive, and cannot live up to the hype of its predecessor.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, Body horror, Blood, Bullying, Confinement, Death, Infidelity, and Murder

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Grief, and Incest

Minor: Death of parent, Alcohol, and Animal death