The Song of Achilles

I am not okay.

Circe has to be one of my all-time favourite books, I should have known The Song of Achilles would destroy me.

I put this off for so long because I absolutely love Briseis, and Patroclus and Achilles, in The Silence of the Girls and I knew I would need time between retellings to digest. I am so glad I took that time and was able to come into this one with a fresh palate, I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much as I did had I read them back to back on the first go. Big however though, now that I have read both, I am 100% planning a tandem read to experiment with how they shape each other.

I read an Iphigenia play at uni, the Odyssey in high school, and something I really love about these more modern retellings is drawing the connections and pulling the threads together to see how these stories wind into this great big mythological tapestry. Obsessed.

Seeing the characters come vividly to life the way they would have been experienced on stage and sung when they were written, gives me so much joy that they can still hold so much meaning and be absolutely heart-wrenching. Madeline Miller is for me, and I hope she writes so, so much more.