Hello friends! Welcome to another retelling review. Thank you for taking the time and visiting my blog. 💖 Today is my birthday! 🎂 I was thinking of what to post today and decided on a book from my favourite genre (though it was meh itself lol). Today’s book is one of those “newly” popular ones focusing on women in ancient Greece, and the story is nothing new to any of us. It focuses on the events of the Iliad, however, our main character is Briseis. The girl was given to Achilles, the girl who doesn’t have a voice in the original literature, but again, in ancient Greece, which women had a voice, to begin with? I do not have much to talk about this book mainly because it was a disappointment to me. After reading so many retellings, I know what to expect and what not to expect, however, this book was far, far from what it could be and what it was advertised as. It is sad because this was the third book I read with hopes of seeing a woman figure with a voice in ancient Greece, fighting for her life, her rights and maybe even her love but I found myself reading something completely different.
Like I’ve said before, I don’t know what I have been expecting. Reading another retelling of the Iliad, the story that I know better than my own name wouldn’t shock me, I was sure of that. But I hoped to see some great things in this book. I did end up reading the book quite fastly, however, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that kept saying: “I’ve read this before.” I am aware that we cannot expect full creativity or something whole new when it comes to retellings of well-known stories, however, I did want to read something maybe refreshing, something new to hear from a figure we didn’t see much of. This was the exact opposite of what I had expected. The author promises us the women’s side of the Trojan War. She promised us that we could finally get a glimpse of what women have been through, and while we do see them suffering at the hands of men, our brilliant character Briseis just sits there. Sits there and watches men die one by one, accepting her fate with Achilles, being in his bed every night, and finding comfort in Patroklos’ existence. Do you see where this is going to? Again, again, just like Ariadne (by Jennifer Saint) instead of using her anger and frustration to change something, women are portrayed as “beings suffering because of men”. We already know it! We already know how painful it is for women to just exist in ancient times, we know HOW HORRIFIC it was for women. Why push that once again instead of letting your characters use their brains and change something? Why not let women in your story be strong, enraged and fearless? Many people under the reviews on Goodreads told that this book was proof that “healthy” feminism still existed and “hooray female power” and… Can someone please explain exactly what part of this book was feminist or could be considered feminist where all we saw was just the endless suffering of women?
But this book had nothing to me, nothing moved something in my heart, it only broke me to see that the power of literature ran for nothing. It had decent language, and somewhat decent narratives (though I hated how the sentence structure changed each time it belonged to Achilles, because changing the sentence structure actually felt like the author wasn’t able to make the difference between both characters by using the same time in the story, so it felt quite pushing to me) but other than that, I am not sure what to feel about this book. I gave it 3 stars, which means it wasn’t bad but it was just a piece of work written by a modern human, focusing on a different character in the Iliad and having a more down-to-earth narrative. No changes in women, no empowerment for women, just a show to show how much they have suffered.
I’ve mentioned a thousand times by now, it did show how bad women were treated in ancient Greek, and it has the horrific reality of women’s worth, and I give all of those 3 stars just for creating realistic representatives of time and horrors of women, pain that they’ve endured.
Other than this unpolished, harsh reality, I don’t see myself particularly enjoying the book or recommending it tbh. If you enjoyed it, I am very much glad on your behalf. Until I see you in my next post friends! 🖖🏻✨
Luster of Books 