Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“And he’ll burn our horizons / make no mistakes”

The Song of Achilles (2011) by Madeline Miller

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Spoiler alerts for a Bronze Age epic poem, I guess, also content note for discussion of sex in this review. I liked this but I didn’t love it. Homer’s Iliad is about blood and fire and gods and fate, about a war that made heroes and villains into legends that echoed through the ages (and sometimes switched their positions). The Song of Achilles is about one of these heroes, the titular Achilles, he of the heel, and his lover Patroclus, and it’s…sweet? And (rather surprisingly) […]

My first DNF of the year

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

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I love mythology. I am the stereotypical gay boy who grew up devouring every piece of mythology I could get my hands on as a kid. So when I heard about a retelling of the Trojan War from the point of view of the women involved, I was amped! But, dear reader, I made it 40% and then decided that I could not do any more. My first DNF of the year. The structure of the book is that the muse of poetry is helping […]

War seems like a wonderful way to make everyone poor and miserable

Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane

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In Wrath Goddess Sing, Maya Deane reimagines Achilles as a trans woman. It’s a beautiful, slyly funny, and blisteringly angry book. It’s such a fresh and different telling of the familiar Trojan War. Achilles is living on an island where she and women like her are welcomed and loved. She is a member of the kallai. Her sisters worship Aphrodite, though Achilles, herself, does not believe in the gods and so takes no part in worship. Her lack of belief though doesn’t protect her from […]

“My father was a king, and the son of kings”, but nothing more

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

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Another volume in my Iliad exploration, I missed The Song of Achilles when it first came out in 2012, garnering superlatives and awards, so have come to it rather late. Miller’s book is not a retelling of the Iliad, although she does, of course, deal with its events in the course of the novel, but The Song of Achilles is more concerned with Achilles and his relationship with Patroclus, and fully illuminates the other man as a real person, albeit one who is always in […]

“I have picked up the old stories and I have shaken them until the hidden women appear in plain sight. I have celebrated them in song because they have waited long enough.”

A Thousand Suns by Natalie Haynes

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  In one word: Refreshing Cannonball Read Bingo: Mythic Y’all. Y’ALL. I HAVE BEEN SO FAR BEHIND IN REVIEWS FOR LIKE TWO MONTHS AND WITH THIS ONE I AM ALL CAUGHT UP AND I HAVE MY FIRST BINGO YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY. Thank you. Where was I? Ah yes. The book! A Thousand Ships was one I found on the new releases shelf at my library and a) it looked pretty and b) was recommended on the cover by Madeline Miller, author of Circe, and c) I was […]

A retelling of a classic, but are these the right secondary characters to focus on?

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

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This is the story of Achilles and his companion Patroclus. Companion here should absolutely be read in the way that we all had that one uncle in his 80s and 90s who lived with a roommate. If you remember any part of your high school English classes, you probably know the over all plot. Trojan War, fated warrior, death, destruction, etc. What Madeline Miller has done in this book is really taken a deeper dive into the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. Which, by the way, […]



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