‘When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.  They called me nymph, assuming I would be like my mother and aunts and thousand cousins.  Least of the lesser goddesses, our powers so modest they could scarcely ensure our eternities.’

(Disclaimer:  This will contain spoilers!)

Circe was an enchantress that was featured in ‘The Odyssey’, turning men and sailors who landed on her island into pigs.  Naturally, I was intrigued.  The fact that Miller is the writer who also wrote the masterpiece that is ‘The Song of Achilles’ didn’t help either.  I jumped straight to this book after I finished TSoA because I was so impressed by her writing.  

Circe is rather frustrating character to read.  I have never seen (or rather read??) someone so needy, so clingy, a complete pushover.  You would think a goddess (even a lesser one) would fare better than the lot of us.  After all, she has powers.  And she lives forever.  And she’s old af (though unfortunately, she acts like a hormonal teenager all the time aka pining over men who could not care less about her and then got all hurt when they snubbed her even though they’ve done it like 10,000 times within the span of 10,000 years and you’d think she’d learn her lessons by now huh).  The story began when Circe was born, and goes on until she was thousands of years old and I was expecting to see growth in terms of emotions and maturity, but it was not there, even after she became a mother.

If you’re looking for a women-empowering female lead, you’re looking at the wrong place. She only learned to stand up for herself by the end of the book, and a lot of pages (of morally ambiguous events) have passed before then.  She turned a love rival into a monster for goodness sake, because the boy she liked (who is not even likeable) likes the girl more.  One thing that I do like though, is when she turned those sailors into pigs.  Completely justified.  Probably would have done more, myself.

Writing-wise, Miller’s words are beautiful, as always.  Circe might be a little frustrating, but this has been an enjoyable read for me, nevertheless.  

Verdict: 4.1/5

(Off-topic, but ain't the book pretty?)