TLDR: Yikes, this was not for me.

A short novella described as a “splendid contemporary twist” on The Odyssey that centres both Penelope and the twelve hanged maids.

I expected a feminist retelling and that was not what I got at all. I think I know the name of only one of the twelve maids (even though this story is supposed to centre them???). And the slandering of Helen by Penelope throughout this novella’s entirety seemed very superficial, in a “But Helen is so much prettier than me and she uses that beauty to manipulate men and she sleeps around a lot and the 10 year war with Troy was all her fault because she’s just so much prettier than me, blah blah blah” way. But I also wish that Helen’s character was not the stereotypical “pretty girl who is a bully and puts down other women”. Sigh…

This novella was supposedly going to put Penelope on the side of the maids and show how upset she was about Odysseus & Telemachus’ treatment of them but yikes, there were times where she completely invalidated their experiences in the name of “Odysseus having atoned” um?? When?

Also, where I expected meaningful prose and stylistic poems, Atwood instead used very simplistic language. I did enjoy the Chorus’ of the maids in the beginning but by the end, it seemed very repetitive.

The contemporary setting was also quite jarring. The characters kept using modern day slang and it felt very, very strange.

This was the first book I’ve read by Atwood and I really hope her other work is better because I did not enjoy this.