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A review by alexan13
A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
3.0
So I have kind of mixed feelings about this. I loved the conceit: the Iliad from the perspective of the women that are sidelined by Homer's epic and through this an examination of the effects of war on an individual and a society. However. I just didn't end up loving how the author did this.
From a craft perspective, this was great. I was surprised to find that the author was true to the Iliad in her storytelling methods. The novel focuses on vignettes and a collection of tales from many women, rather than diving into any one perspective to get a full understanding of each character. That's more or less what the Iliad does as well (it's there to tell you the story, it's not interested in a deep exploration of individuals). This also was instrumental to making the thematic point about grief and the effects of war being simultaneously individual and collective.
However, it simply wasn't the most engaging reading experience. I also have particular grief with Penelope's chapters: Penelope is one of the few characters that has multiple POV chapters, but really all we get from them is her retelling the events of the Odyssey and reacting to them, instead of insight to her own story and her own life outside of Odysseus. Not only was I not interested in reading a synopsis of the Odyssey, this felt like such wasted potential and didn't do much to complicate the narrative.
Overall, I would actually highly recommend this book. For me, it wasn't the most engaging and I feel like the author could have dove deeper thematically.
From a craft perspective, this was great. I was surprised to find that the author was true to the Iliad in her storytelling methods. The novel focuses on vignettes and a collection of tales from many women, rather than diving into any one perspective to get a full understanding of each character. That's more or less what the Iliad does as well (it's there to tell you the story, it's not interested in a deep exploration of individuals). This also was instrumental to making the thematic point about grief and the effects of war being simultaneously individual and collective.
However, it simply wasn't the most engaging reading experience. I also have particular grief with Penelope's chapters: Penelope is one of the few characters that has multiple POV chapters, but really all we get from them is her retelling the events of the Odyssey and reacting to them, instead of insight to her own story and her own life outside of Odysseus. Not only was I not interested in reading a synopsis of the Odyssey, this felt like such wasted potential and didn't do much to complicate the narrative.
Overall, I would actually highly recommend this book. For me, it wasn't the most engaging and I feel like the author could have dove deeper thematically.