Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The truth is, men make terrible pigs

Circe by Madeline Miller

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I knew almost nothing of Circe before going into this. I remembered that she was in The Odyssey, and that Odysseus lived on her island for a time, but nothing more than that. She is the daughter of Helios, and is an unremarkable and naive nymph. Shunned by her siblings and dismissed by her parents, she finally discovers that her power lies in witchcraft. Because of this, and for how she uses it, she is exiled for eternity by her father to an uninhabited island. […]

Circe – Mic Drop

Circe by Madeline Miller

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My knowledge of Greek mythology is minimal: I know only the broadest of strokes. I mean, I’ve read the Odyssey (bits of it at least?) and I’ve seen “O Brother Where Art Thou.” I was a bit skeptical that I would enjoy this book, but it had such rave reviews and a lot of ladies I know really enjoyed it, so I joined the pack and I’m glad I did. In fact, not really knowing about mythology made it even more fun to read and […]

A (not so) funny thing happened on the way to writing this review

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

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I was finally caught up with my reviews at the end of March, and then everything went to hell. I spent a week in Paris (yay!) but came home to what I thought was a simple but nasty case of jetlag + airplane cold but which turned out to be . . . THE FLU. And let me just say that jetlag and three days of crazy-loud home repairs and several days of high fever/chills/aches/lungs-filled-with-pure-evil are not conducive to being productive. Moral of the story: […]

I came for the fighting, but stayed for the sweet, sweet love

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

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I’m closer to 40 than I am 30, and I’ve never read The Iliad. I did, however, read The Odyssey in middle school, and quite liked it – though poetry has never been my thing, and the archaic formatting of the translation I read bothered me. Still. It was a good story, and I was in the florescence of my love for heroic fantasy, so The Odyssey kind of felt like the genesis for the types of stories I was reading at the time. So […]

The man, the myth, the legend

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

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This is a version of the myth told by Patroclus, Achilles’s companion. Patroclus is a prince who accidentally kills another boy and is exiled, fostered to King Peleus whose son is Achilles. Initially feeling like an outsider, something about Patroclus catches Achilles’s eye and they become friends. When Achilles is sent to train with the centaur Chiron, Patroclus goes with him, against Achilles’s goddess mother, Thetis’s wishes. They spend a few glorious years cut off from the world, and their relationship deepens. Eventually they fall […]

“When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist.”

Circe by Madeline Miller

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Circe has been topping a lot of people’s Best Of books this year and for good reason. It is a well written, interesting take on several well known Greek myths but doesn’t require an extensive knowledge of Greek mythology to enjoy (although Madeline Miller is obviously a Greek mythology fan girl). Nymph-turned-witch Circe is the daughter of Helios; she is never meant to rule kingdoms because while she is immortal she is not a God. She finds happiness being a nanny to her siblings but […]



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