I know it's not important in the scheme of things, but this book changes from past tense to present tense and then back again a couple of time MID PARAGRAPH and I am angry with all the editors and readers and judges to allow such an abomination against the gods to go unnoticed.
I liked some some of the writing and the evocation of the world - esp with Chiron - and thought the Thetis characterisation was interesting. Patroclus was someone to care a bit about in the last quarter, when in the first half I would have abandoned the book as Do Not Care At All About These Boring Horrible People if I hadn't known the story gets good... the idealised Briseis relationship pissed me off so now I'm reading Pat Barker's Silence of the Girls to cleanse from that... But Odysseuss is great - perfect, actually, just like the version of him in my head I've had for twenty years. The Iphigenia episode was really well done - I ended up wanting to read Miller's versions of all the characters except Achilles, who was just this flat absence. It's hard to rate this book, as it has reawakened my late-teens obsession with Greek mythology, which feels like a vast, complex, fucked up but beautiful home to return to. And reasons enough to look forward to reading Circe - but I wouldn't be recommending this one.