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drollgorg 's review for:
Wrath Goddess Sing
by Maya Deane
adventurous
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
When Shel told me to read this book they said "there's a lot of images that you're going to hate but I want you to read anyway." So I'll attempt to present my reactions as much as possible, though I ultimately didn't find it as shocking or off-putting as that little preface primed me to. I was expecting some heavy body horror, which there isn't much of- apart from the inherent body horror of pregnancy I suppose.
The biggest thing that I liked about this book- the gods and their portrayals. The whole fact that they're hidden from and mostly act indirectly upon mortals and so the book starts out trying to portray a world without any magic or mythos behind it is kind of odd considering how quickly the gods start appearing and how they're really much more the main set of characters in the story than the mortals, with the exception of Achilles and Meryapi. Achilles has ties to humanity, but the people really driving the story are all divine, and things move faster and faster the more that those residual human connections are cut away.
The gods are so strange and menacing, and their appearances in the story convincingly knit together different mythologies from across the Mediterranean world- clearly Deane cares a lot about archaeology and the origin of myths. The lore and "magic system"- if I can use such a vulgar term here- of the world were really the highlights for me, with the cycle of sacrifice and rebirth, the different relationship that each of the gods has to humanity, and the way that magic is understood differently in the different cultures portrayed.
With all that said, what I enjoyed less from the book were the human-oriented parts of the plot and the relationship it has with its source material. It feels like Deane wanted to drastically reimagine the characters involved in and the way that everything really goes down, but at the same time wasn't willing to actually radically move away from the story of the Iliad in a way that keeps it from being recognizable as the same essential tale. What you get is that most of the Greek mythic figures become entirely different people, but they mostly make the same choices. The conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon is no longer about a conflict over who can lay claim to a slave woman, and Briseis who is here a trans Amazon man is presented as a figure with his own agency- but the crux of that conflict isn't actually changed from them taking slaves in war. It just feels more jarring when characters whose viewpoint is expressed in a more relatably "modern" way, with attitudes and dialogue that feels like it could come from someone living today, still act as ancient Greek warlords would. I have always been a fan of historical fiction where the world and characters are expressed as fundamentally distinct in their experience and culture- without overly apologizing for the inhumane ways people act. "The past is a foreign country." That balance felt off here.
I also felt like all the parts of the story that weren't about magic and the gods, and most of the human characters, were just not as developed. You don't get much of them, many are really just a few lines of dialogue, and they ultimately feel extraneous to the real events of import.
And hotgirl Achilles being insatiably horny for the beautiful, muscular-but-not-too-bulky, clever and sensitive Agamemnon is just too much for me. You're taking Chiron, a mythological figure I have fondness for, and making him into a sadistic homo- and transphobic abuser and then telling me I should find Agamemon likable instead? No! Go away!
The biggest thing that I liked about this book- the gods and their portrayals. The whole fact that they're hidden from and mostly act indirectly upon mortals and so the book starts out trying to portray a world without any magic or mythos behind it is kind of odd considering how quickly the gods start appearing and how they're really much more the main set of characters in the story than the mortals, with the exception of Achilles and Meryapi. Achilles has ties to humanity, but the people really driving the story are all divine, and things move faster and faster the more that those residual human connections are cut away.
The gods are so strange and menacing, and their appearances in the story convincingly knit together different mythologies from across the Mediterranean world- clearly Deane cares a lot about archaeology and the origin of myths. The lore and "magic system"- if I can use such a vulgar term here- of the world were really the highlights for me, with the cycle of sacrifice and rebirth, the different relationship that each of the gods has to humanity, and the way that magic is understood differently in the different cultures portrayed.
With all that said, what I enjoyed less from the book were the human-oriented parts of the plot and the relationship it has with its source material. It feels like Deane wanted to drastically reimagine the characters involved in and the way that everything really goes down, but at the same time wasn't willing to actually radically move away from the story of the Iliad in a way that keeps it from being recognizable as the same essential tale. What you get is that most of the Greek mythic figures become entirely different people, but they mostly make the same choices. The conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon is no longer about a conflict over who can lay claim to a slave woman, and Briseis who is here a trans Amazon man is presented as a figure with his own agency- but the crux of that conflict isn't actually changed from them taking slaves in war. It just feels more jarring when characters whose viewpoint is expressed in a more relatably "modern" way, with attitudes and dialogue that feels like it could come from someone living today, still act as ancient Greek warlords would. I have always been a fan of historical fiction where the world and characters are expressed as fundamentally distinct in their experience and culture- without overly apologizing for the inhumane ways people act. "The past is a foreign country." That balance felt off here.
I also felt like all the parts of the story that weren't about magic and the gods, and most of the human characters, were just not as developed. You don't get much of them, many are really just a few lines of dialogue, and they ultimately feel extraneous to the real events of import.
And hotgirl Achilles being insatiably horny for the beautiful, muscular-but-not-too-bulky, clever and sensitive Agamemnon is just too much for me. You're taking Chiron, a mythological figure I have fondness for, and making him into a sadistic homo- and transphobic abuser and then telling me I should find Agamemon likable instead? No! Go away!