Today was a cozy hobby day, so I ate this audiobook up while setting up my digital reading journal, coloring, and organizing my bookshelves. I had a lovely time. However, I didn't connect with this as much as I expected to. I wanted to be wrecked because I've seen that a lot of people consider it to be one of the saddest books ever, but it wasn't that for me. 

Full disclosure, I've only read The Illyad and the Odyseey once and it was back in high school, so I don't remember much. I intend to reread them as part of my classics journey now that I'm an adult, but I didn't before I picked this up, so I'm not sure how well this works as a retelling of that. I can say this is definitely more of a romantasy take on the story than a historical take. And that worked for me. I just expected... more. It was even a little boring at times. 

The characters were bland, in my opinion, and I didn't feel like the chemistry between them was strong. They didn't give me the butterflies except when they were kinda pining for each other and finally got together in their youth. That was really moving and beautiful. Other than that, I feel like the text wanted me to believe that their chemistry was insane, but it didn't make me actually feel it. 

Patroclus was the blandest of them. I do love a soft, tender boy, but not at the expense of having an actual personality beyond the love he feels for his partner. Achilles was also bland, but he had more of a personality. The problem is that personality kinda sucked for a lot of the book, so it was disappointing. I did feel for these characters a little in the end, but I wasn't particularly heartbroken. 

The prose is beautiful, though, and I loved a lot of lines and little moments, they just lacked depth for me. Overall, it's a book I enjoyed, but I expected so much more out of it, so I can't help but feel let down.