A review by rosiedalton
The Women of Troy by Pat Barker

dark emotional reflective sad 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? It's complicated

3.5

Genuinely very lovely, very well written and enjoyable. I haven’t read The Silence of the Girls so I’m obviously missing the context from that but as a stand-alone retelling of the most boring part of the Iliad I think Barker does a wonderful job at fleshing out the characters. Briseis is such an interesting character and to choose her as the primary mouthpiece was a great choice. I also really enjoyed the perspectives of calchas and Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus in particular was a really interesting and complex point of view and I’d definitely be interested in more from Barker through his eyes; she fleshes out that mix of heroism and hubris so well and delves into the tumultuous psyche of the son of Achilles and slayer of Priam, without it feeling like a therapy session. However, when reading a book called The Women of Troy, I expected more perspectives from…the women of Troy. I had expected different women to get their own chapters, I would have loved to see the perspective of Helen and Cassandra, even one of the girls in Pyrrhus’ compound because Briseis, as lovely as she is and interested in her that I may be, she doesn’t have much in the way of a fleshed out personality; maybe that’s the point? Maybe she’s just had to learn over the years that she cannot have a personality but still her determination to survive is overarching and her emotional processes felt sincere because of how very stoic they seemed much of the time. Nevertheless, Briseis was a good choice and I still enjoyed her thoroughly but it would have been nice to feel a perspective that contrasted to hers, Cassandra’s perhaps? The defiant princess, fated to never be believed and for her marriage to lead to her doom and the hands of the first wife; a very complex emotional situation; her as mouthpiece would have been powerful contrasted with Briseis, the atmosphere of the book would have been different and a little more gripping possibly. 
It felt a little repetitive and slow in a few places but that’s to be expected given the lack of material on this particular period of the aftermath of the Trojan war. Otherwise a fantastic read and one of my favourites in the modern retellings of myths!
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