Circe

by Madeline Miller

Circe, daughter of Helios, is born a goddess. Her name means Hawk, given to her because of her mortal sounding screeches. She has always been the most attentive towards her father and his brothers, nephews and other relatives. Sitting silently at his feet and following all conversations. She never thought to have special powers like her father, but it turns out that she and her two brothers and sister all possess the gift of witchcraft. It takes her quite some time to get used to her new powers and to really master them, but together with her attentiveness, she puts her magic up for her own advantage. In the beginning, this doesn't turn out exactly the way she wants, it even gets her exiled to the island Aiaia. But as she grows and learns, she manages to rectify her mistakes and she becomes the strongest witch among her siblings.

Next to that, she has an undefinable love for mortals and looks up to their traits and labours throughout her entire life.

This novel really bathes you in mythology and shows how all these myths are intertwined and connected to each other. You don't need any knowledge about the ancient Greek myths, but it makes reading them a bit easier and recognising them is truly uplifting.

I've studied Latin for six years in high school, so I personally got to recognise many stories and characters, which was very pleasant. It was nice to see all the stories come together, for me this was done in a more coherent way than I ever got to know the separate myths in school.

The novel is generally pretty fast-paced, but there were, however, some slower pieces in the novel where I could barely keep my eyes open during reading. I have been rather sleepy lately due to the warm weather, so that could also be the cause. The novel is filled with female empowerment and the fight against sexism etc. There's also a nice little plot twist at the end that just really makes Circe's existence her own.

Madeline Miller and her book deserve all the praise and hype! I've never read any of her other work, but The Song of Achilles is now higher on my TBR than ever before! I'm really looking forward to reading more of her work. I recommend this book if you are okay with remembering a whole bunch of names of gods, demigods, mythological creatures and heroes. Also recommended if you are into female empowerment and are looking for something with character growth (however unusual for gods) and if you like gossip and quarrelling between indestructible gods and so on (it sometimes even looked like a drama series in the beginning).

This also was the first time that I annotated a book (if sticky flags count?). I used the flags to keep track of feminism/female empowerment, Circe's feelings of guilt and love for humans, names of gods and their explanations, tears or crying in the book and lastly Circe's powerful moments. This way I can easily go back to those parts and reread them.