Circe by Madeline Miller

A Fantasy, 2018 by Little Brown and Co, 393 Pages

What I Didn’t Like:

CW: Sexual assault (not graphic).
There are parts of the story that move slowly and feel drawn out to show the passage of time.
If you aren’t familiar with all the mythology and stories behind the characters it may feel like too many characters are being thrust at you at once. There are a lot of names, roles, and locations thrown around early on in the story.

Mythology is kept intact. The weaving of different stories together into one focal point, Circe, is very smart. The stories you have heard are here and they are honored, but it’s a slightly different twist on some of them only because of the point of view they are told from. I enjoyed the way they all came together very much.
Witchcraft. The way the herbal work was described as amazing. Even as an immortal, Circe struggles with getting the spells just right. This was a great way to take a look at witchcraft and I enjoyed it immensely.
Big messages. I love when stories bury their messages for you to decode instead of slapping you in the face with them. This one is full of those (as were the original Greek myths) and I enjoyed them.

Mythology fans. The care the author took to keep the aspects of the Greek myths (and Titan myths) whole is obvious. Beautiful version of the tales here.
Fantasy fans this is essentially a book about gods galavanting around and making history. It’s full of strong characterization and the themes buried here are beautiful.

I had trouble deciding how to rate this one but, at the end of the day, it was written for mythology fans but also to introduce a new group of fantasy readers to mythology in an interesting way. Also, this is one that I will recommend a lot!