A review by bibliorey
Daughters of Sparta by Claire Heywood

5.0

“womanhood would be exciting and glamorous, and no one would treat her like a silly little girl anymore.”

this is what all of us have thought once during our moments of girlhood. to wish we would have that freedom and power that womanhood have shown us through the women of our lives. mothers, older sisters, grandmothers, aunts, and so on. the same is felt by the daughters of sparta themselves—helen and klytemnestra—as they grew up side-by-side, before being torn apart by one of the consequences that comes with womanhood; marriage.

having read elektra written by the author jennifer saint only a few months ago, the story and tragedy of the trojan war especially through the eyes of klytemnestra is still somewhat fresh within the depths of my very mind and i was excited at the thought of devouring daughters of sparta that i push it to my top reading priority as quickly as i can the moment that it arrived on my doorstep. though it was bittersweet revisiting klytemnestra's tragic story of motherhood and justice, i was also deeply intrigued by helen's point of view of all that has happened before and after the trojan war as the war was somewhat waged due to her alleged kidnapping by paris of troy.

reading through the story, i almost felt the same sense of conflict as these two women in terms of my sympathy towards both of the sisters and even some of the characters that i knew were horrendously ruthless and merciless and yet i nearly sympathised with them. sympathised with what they have to sacrifice, what they have lose in order to gain this epic greatness that not only will bring benefits to their people (at least that's what they thought with all the stealing of richness and all) and yet part of me deeply loathed them for the decisions to which they so clearly have another option to consider of instead of acting on what they had chosen to execute anyway. alas, fate is inevitable, especially when it comes to martyrs so innocent as our dear iphigenia.

i was thrilled to have been able to dive more into helen's thoughts in this one as we get to see her in her own tragic and loveless circumstances that led her into choosing to run away with paris to troy. as i said earlier, part me understood why she did what she did—the same goes to klytemnestra—but part of me was also frustratingly screaming at her for what she did as well. the roller coaster of feelings i went through with this book was excruciating, but it's an experience i would forever cherish and will not trade it for anything else.

claire heywood is a brilliant writer. this retelling is simply brilliant and well written that it quickly crawls up there with my favourite greek retelling author, madeline miller. as it should. as it deserved. though the chapters were meant to be the "point of view" of each sisters, i am somewhat grateful that the author still narrates the story in a third-person pov still as it made my reading pace somewhat smooth sailing and in a way, for early readers of greek retellings, this will help them understand the story much more better i feel. so props to the author for that!

all in all, a really beautiful and tragic book. i highly recommend this to all of you and especially readers who enjoy greek mythology and retellings as deeply as i am. you will definitely be content with this particular retelling i feel as that is what it delivered to me victoriously. i am content beyond my imagination at the moment. so please, pick it up!

thank you as always to definitely books by pansing for graciously sending me a copy of daughters of sparta for me to devour and spill my thoughts on. always grateful for this distributing house