I'm not a fan of Miller's book, either. Seriously, what is it with writers pinning women against each other? It's even more confusing when it's a female writer doing it.

If it was just Perse and Pasipäe, okay. If you want to give Circe a bad home life, fine. But Miller does it constantly. Athena was done especially dirty imo. I know she can be pretty petty herself (ex: Arachne, and even then, the reason for turning her into a spider tends to vary), but the way she was portrayed was just so grating. So eager for a champion, I was almost convinced Miller had conflated her with Ares. I don't think the exiled nymphs are even given names, let alone distinguishing personalities, and can we stop dunking on Helen? The Iliad makes it pretty clear that she loved Menelaus and didn't think highly of Paris.

And tbh, the story kinda felt a little repetitive at times, too: Circe meets someone, they get mad at her or leave her, she'll occasionally sleep with someone, rinse and repeat. And granted, she's a pretty minor character in the myths already, but I feel like it would've benefited the story more if she had been given more freedom, that she wasn't restricted to just her island. At the very least, how awesome it would've been if Circe had essentially started her own coven before passing on the role as the head witch of Aiaia to Penelope.

Also, can we stop having sexual assault scenes if the story isn't about that? At least it gives Circe a reason to turn men into literal pigs, but still.

I also don't think it's ever really explained why Circe has a mortal voice, even though she has full Titan blood. She just does. Granted, Perse is a minor nymph, but then what about the rest of her children? I'd get it if it was meant to be an allegory for disabilities, but it just felt like it was added on for the sake of making Circe more of an outcast than she already was.

And this is really more of a nitpick, but for a book that focuses so heavily on witchcraft, it's strange that Hecate wasn't even mentioned. In some versions, she's even Circe's mother. It's also really weird how homosexuality seems to be something that was so uncommon in Ancient Greece as far as these books are concerned, even though we know from history and myth that it wasn't. So yeah, Circe x Penelope would've been pretty awesome!

Blegh, sorry for the rant! I just have alot of thoughts about this book right now! ^^"

ATHENA WAS DONE SO SO DIRTY...it makes no sense even in the telegony itself its her who urges circe to tell telegonus about odyessus. wouldn't it have been more interesting for athena to assist circe in raising telegonus? wouldn't it have been more tragic for telegonus to go kill odyessus at athena's urging of him to go meet him? and then yadda yadda athena and circe can have a falling out then or something yadda yadda i don't know again, i know the gods are written in very specific ways here for the ultimate theme of the book here but like this book is so hard on athena it's so weird when i think that honestly there could have been more interesting for her and circe to work together...

ALSO YEAH MADELINE MILLER HAS A HELEN PROBLEM...i think it was fairer in the song of achilles and i rationalized the helen weirdness in that one by going 'well they're achilles and patroclus of course they won't have choice opinions on helen if from their perspective she's the one that led them into this war' but come on..not in circe too..leave her alone...

and i agree the book really did feel repetitive, but if you're asking me i wish there was more exploration to the episodes circe does get-especially the stint at crete, i wish we had seen more of circe and ariadne's and even her and pasiphae's relationship so bad. they get one conversation where they talk and it was so good but it ends so soon. honestly i feel a lot of the conversations in the book are repetitive as well- someone talking to someone, they reveal something about something else, the first someone is surprised!

also yeah the assault is um. i did not think we needed that scene as explicit as it was but i get that that's routine in these sorts of books at this point...now i will say i don't think a book has to be about that sort of stuff if a book includes them but i do think it should be addressed with care and i dunno if that book does that....

ALSO YEAH...the mortal's voice thing is an epithet given to her in the odyssey without much preamble as to what implications that has or to where she got it from and i don't think the author really had to explain it to make the story work but it would...have been nice to see her come up with an interpretation of what exactly that means for circe

and no i don't think it's a nitpick, i feel the same way irt to the book and witchcraft but the witch i feel like got REALLY shifted was medea. i think there could have been sooo many good parallels with medea and circe here-while circe is hated by her divine family, medea is a darling of helios (and in a fair amount of medea myths she returns to colchis where she's presumably forgiven by aeetes, including that variant where she kills perses to reinstate her father on the throne. i wish that had been mentioned in circe; at least then perses would have a point). while circe becomes a mortal at the end of her story in circe, medea in euripides' medea becomes a goddess herself or close to it while also becoming more monstrous in the process. while circe is constantly accused of caring too much for mortals medea has a fair disregard for the lives of other people (maybe due to her powers to reverse mortality). there could have literally been so much said here not just about divinity and mortality but the boundaries that both circe and medea would cross for the sake of their love oh my god i have no idea why not only her episode in the book was so short but there was very little follow up to what happened with her story afterward ugauwerwherhe

also yeah irt to homosexuality i think it was implied? telegonus was gay which is chill but also come on...give us the iconic greek myth ladies wlw romances.....