Alessandra is reading…

Circe by Madeline Miller

“Even after all this time, you still believe you should be rewarded, just because you have been obedient.”

Circe is the daughter of the god Helios and nymph Perse. Zeus banishes her to solitary life on her own island when it is found that she sought out her witchcraft powers. Her thousands of years on the island have a lot more than a solitary life. 

“Of course my flesh reaches for the earth. That is where it belongs.”

Overall, I felt like this was just a bunch of short Greek stories about Circe passed off as a novel. Around the middle of the book, I found I was pushing myself to read this. I kept going because I was intrigued by the Greek mythology retellings.

While I didn’t totally understand others saying Miller’s writing is so beautiful, I did find a few quotes that I thought were nice. I really just found the writing bland and the stories dragged on.

“But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth.”

It seems that I don’t have much to say reviewing a book that I didn’t entirely enjoy because I didn’t interact with it as much. Yet, I do have some notes that I’ll be posting later.