Circe - Madeline Miller - Mel's Bookshelf

Circe – Madeline Miller

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

My Review of Circe

I was determined not to love this one! It has SO MUCH HYPE around it, it even won the Goodreads award for best fantasy with a whopping 36,000 votes more than the runner up! I was SURE that I wasn’t going to buy into the hype. A fantasy based around Greek mythology? Gods and Tytans and Nymphs and stuff? Not really my usual reading subject matter… Surely I wouldn’t love this book.

Well…. That was a silly thing to think! I absolutely adored this book!
Just really upset that I read this at the beginning of the year, and now I highly doubt any other book I read in 2019 will come close. I will spend the rest of the year trying to fill an impossible standard.

Circe is the daughter of the God Helios. Growing up, she is taunted relentlessly by her siblings and neglected by her parents. She is immortal, but has no powers to speak of. She lives a mundane existence until one day she is walking by the beach and spots a mortal man. Soon, she discovers that she does have one skill, witchcraft. And that skill is feared by Zeus himself. So she is banished, destined to live eternity alone.

I am going to be honest here, I know NOTHING about Greek mythology. I know about Zeus, and a few of the other Gods, but I have never actively sought out stories about them and I always found the stories quite dull. Perhaps that is one reason why I enjoyed this so much. I didn’t know the characters, the stories, the legends.. So I found myself looking up each character that Circe came across. I must have spent about as much time looking up the characters and monsters than I did listening to the book!

The writing was amazing. I will do something I don’t normally do and add some of my favourite quotes.
“He was another knife I could feel it. A different sort, but a knife still. I did not care. I thought: give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for.”
“You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite.”

She had me absolutely hooked to every word!

A STAND ALONE fantasy!!!! WOW! So exciting!!! I am SO OVER series after series! Books ending on cliffhangers and waiting with baited breath for YEARS for the next one! A stand alone is so darn refreshing!

Did I enjoy the audio version?

The audio version of Circe was absolutely amazing. Perdita Weeks narrated the audio version and she was a pleasure to listen to! Even with her English accent depicting Greek characters.