"Circe" by Madeline Miller

It’s been a while since I read anything derived from Greek mythology—my last experience being the Percy Jackson series a decade ago—so I went in with no expectations and a hazy-at-best memory of what events would occur. I used to be very into mythology and had read a lot of various Greek and Roman myths, but I’ve forgotten large amounts of it over the years. Things slowly came back to me as I read “Circe”, and I think that rekindled knowledge made me enjoy Miller’s retelling even more than I would have otherwise.

There were a few things I was able to clock as being different from the myths I knew as a child (even without making an effort to refresh my memory) but I think the things I noticed changed universally served to flesh out and elevate the story being told. It also worth noting that myths themselves have been anything but static; the abridged retelling(s) I grew up on are thousands of years removed from their original sources and languages.

Miller does an excellent job of showing the somewhat disconnected manner in which an immortal might think. For much of the book there’s always something slightly off about the way Circe views things, and it really sells her as a unique narrator. I’ve got a large backlog to go through but once I’m further through I’d like to check out more of her work. This really helped remind me how interesting I find mythology.