loxeletters's reviews
239 reviews

Due to the heavy subject matter, this was a slow read for me - though the strikes themselves were very readable. As always with mixed anthologies, some stories stayed with me more than others. A very diverse collection. I struggle to give a coherent, overall review because I read this over the span of multiple months.

This was a fun read! Definitely very enjoyable. I read the last half in two sittings over 12 hours lol.

I feel this is a superb kind of retelling: it really captures the feeling of reading the Odyssey and Iliad while conforming, at least in the later chapters, more to our modern taste in storytelling. The beginning certainly had strong narrative resemblance to the old classics.

My main gripe with this book is that, for being marketed as a feminist retelling, it really focuses so much on men and Circe's relationship with them. There's no female friendship or relationship in this book that is given as much space or development as her relationships to her lovers, her father, Telegonus, and her brother. 

That being said, I did really enjoy exploring her complex relationship with Telegonus, and even shed a few tears there. She went through so much and still would give everything for him. That really touched something in me.

Important ideas explored here are immortality and divinity, needless cruelty, motherhood, loneliness, and death. Regardless of my complaints, this was a lovely read.

This book was a fascinating read that resonated deeply with me. The prose was gorgeous. However I feel like I need to reread it to get a deeper understanding.

Makes an interesting point about the value of instinct/experience versus "knowledge"

What an interesting read! I especially enjoyed the themes of faux-feminism, the absurdity of academia, and the relationship between you and your creation. Regarding that last point, I think I might have benefitted from having read Frankenstein? It seems there's some links here, but that's just guess work. I still really enjoyed this, and though I didn't cry, the ending broke my heart.

It was quite depressing at times, which is why I couldn't rate this as "funny" even though the satirical aspects worked well. I guess that is the horror of this book for me - I wasn't very affected by the gore, I was never really scared, more just very depressed by the ongoing loneliness of our MC.

I can't say I could've guessed most of the major twists, which is a plus :)
Speaking of which, I agree that it's quite disorienting and difficult to figure out what is real and what isn't, but I think that's the point. I mean... They even discuss in the book how disorientation can be valuable for writing lol.

I did think the final scene was maybe a bit too clean-cut.
 

Maybe the way her relationship to Jonah is portrayed could have used some more nuance. He was always nice, sure, but I feel like her realisation that he just doesn't care about others' judgement doesn't really make up for the contempt she had for him throughout the book. He is always portrayed as so pathetic, and I can't really reconcile this with her attitude towards him at the end.

 
But this is somewhat nit-picky!

My second issue was the prose - overall it was good, but some phrasings were a bit repetitive for me. Maybe some adjectives could've been cut out as well. But that's just my personal taste, I think.

Overall, a very interesting book, which leaves you questioning what is real and what isn't, while providing some much-needed cultural criticism — exactly my cup of tea!

This was so, for a lack of a better word, fun! Of course it was quite depressing at times, and often infuriating. But since we were mostly "spared" the perspective of handmaids and wives, it was somewhat less grim than the first book. I guess that is also why it had less of an emotional impact on me, though it was still so captivating and immersive that it feels wrong to give it any less than five stars. I enjoyed all three perspectives, and again found the primary source concept fun and interesting. Some more elaboration on the actual downfall of Gilead would've made me happy, but the vagueness gives room to think and speculate, which I always appreciate. Interestingly, I perhaps connected most with Aunt Lydia, since I found her characterisation to be the most fleshed out and compelling. 

All in all, this is not the kind of literary fiction that the Handmaid's Tale was - and that's fine by me. I enjoyed both it's literary and thriller aspects a lot.