A review by libbyhb
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

adventurous dark emotional sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Obviously I've heard about this book for........years, and I finally picked it back up (after abandoning it sometime in 2014) to complete a challenge. So I did come into this with expectations built up! I thought this was well-written and clearly based on a lot of research/knowledge. Honestly, my biggest takeaway from this was a sudden desire to read The Iliad, so I'm grateful for that at least. I liked that this was centered on Patroclus and his perspective - it gave the story more of a "human", grounded feeling. What I *didn't* love was...Achilles. Like halfway through the book I was already rooting for Patroclus to ditch this guy. He didn't make sense to me, and I rarely felt connected to him in any way, which was surprising because of how much Patroclus was supposed to care about him. Something that happens kind of often for me reading certain queer books is that I end up rooting for one of them to ditch the other one and get together with their friend instead. I hate this, to be clear! I am in a same-gender relationship! But sometimes the same-gender relationship is just not written in a way where I want to root for them at all. This was the case for this book - I ended up wanting Patroclus to be with Briseis, because their relationship was so much more compelling to me. At the end of the day, who cares. I had a decent time reading this book, and am excited to explore more of the mythology because of it!
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