How does one write a review of such an epic work?

I think I will start by setting aside its historical and theological value, which as a foundational moment in Western literature cannot really be disputed. 7 out of 5 starts on that front.

But now as a contemporary read? Perhaps a bit less so. Milton's lush and allusion-heavy blank verse was at many levels a signpost experience and even a revelation, not for its ambition to explain the ways of God (which it certainly undertakes if at times unevenly) but for how his elucidation of the story of Creation has rooted itself into this civilization's psyche.

We can argue with his interpretations (and we should), we can resist the subservient role of Eve as a representative of women (and we should), and we can even raise eyebrows at Milton's self-stated ego (and I do). But we can also examine the anti-heroic Promethean role assigned to Satan, the delicate balancing act Milton plays with his many references to Greco-Roman mythology, the strategic thinking he does to sort out free will from God's "fated" plan.

For me, what was often at work was a narratological problem: every time you have to "fill in all the details" of a story that is itself brief allegory, a metaphor, readers are bound to focus on failed plotting. Why are the angels driving in chariots and marshalling spears? Why do God and Son both wonder/worry if Satan will achieve victory if the story is already foreordained? Why does Adam allow Eve to go off on her own when they were specifically warned there is a proverbial and literal snake in the grass? And why is the innocent serpent (itself merely a victim of devilish possession) also punished?

The answer has to be at some level, Who cares? It makes the plot go forward. And that is the trouble that Milton had to contend with: How do we make a large story-led argument about God's purposes that also adds trivial events/details while it expounds grander motivations? At some level, we might say, Genesis works because it is brief, parable-like. It allows us to recognize its places for reflection. Milton wanted to fill them in, and in so doing, perhaps, created a whole new set of challenges for Christian thinking while he answered questions.

Unpopular opinion, too, that I appreciated Paradise Regained in several ways more than Paradise Lost.

Like the first book, Milton focuses only a specific scene, here the temptations of Jesus in the desert. The (only) four chapters open up the challenges Satan offers and the lengthier explanations Jesus makes in rejecting them. For me, even if we disagree with the nature of the arguments, Milton is more successful because there are literally fewer "events" to detail. So we don't have to ask embarrassing questions and can focus almost exclusively on the interplay between the two, the arguments made about food, faith, and power (presented in the order of the Gospel of Luke) are worthwhile in that readers can appreciate (dangerously) the "logic" of Satan's points, saved only by Jesus's focused rejoinders.

Milton spends the most time on the temptation to power, offering Jesus several variations of what that might look like and why he might consider it to achieve his aims, even arguing that both he and Jesus might benefit from bringing the "story" of Satan to an ending. Though we do not have the full "dramatization" of the Genesis story, Regained accomplishes more absolutely what Milton stated was his purpose: to articulate the ways of God, and the rejection of Satan in the desert, of course, is the ideal mirror of the failure of mankind to do so in Paradise.

Most don't read this section of Milton, but I would argue all the more to do so, and perhaps--if you are uncertain about reading Milton at all, start with it. It will allow readers a faster read to test their capacity for enduring the blank verse of centuries before while still sampling a Master of the Canon. Then go on to read the larger first work. Trust me, by now, spoilers have to be impossible, anyway, yes?