The Song of Achilles

It was very difficult for me to follow the plot of this book. My tiny brain was struggling to memorize all of the long ass names, and unfortunately I am not nerdy enough to have the system of society in Ancient Greece filed away in my brain. I was lost and confused and honestly a little bit bored, BUT I DON’T CARE. This was beautiful. It was queer joy, feminist anger, teen angst, and a wee little history lesson ALL IN ONE. The masterful way the author like spreads out the 21 year long plot line through out the book is masterful, and the characters and their individual actions are written so damn well, that I don’t even need to know the plot! The ending broke me, I was crying for literally the entire last sixty pages. This is the most beautiful story I’ve ever read. Not THE BEST, and certainly not the most interesting, but 100% the most beautiful. Achilles and Patroclus have the most heartbreaking love story of them all, I wish them nothing but happiness. <3

I never found Greek mythology, Homer, Virgil, etc. very interesting or accessible, just another high school lit duty, but this original retelling from a traditionally minor character's viewpoint is brilliant and beautifully written with a deep emotional arc. I was mesmerized by the last few chapters (really had no idea where it was going even though big picture we know how it turns out). Often these serious lit books end with a set of canned discussion questions that seem geared toward high school classes or suburban weekend reading groups, and that is in the book, but there is a much more interesting interview with the author describing her own journey in writing the book (Ten years! Ten years!), her own emotional travel experience after writing the book, and a review of the cast of characters with references to the Iliad, which would have looked like a Cliff Notes before reading the book, but afterwards you just want to find out more about that person. Which I plan to do in part by reading the author's followup retelling of the Odyssey (that took her only seven years to write!).