A Great Addition to Greek Mythology

Rating:
3 out of 5 stars

Summary:
This novel tells the story of Penelope, wife of Odysseus and mother to Telemachus, two rather famous characters from Ancient Greek history and mythology. However, the Ancient Greeks did not tend to write ANY stories at all about their women, because they thought women had a few jobs in life and were not important enough to be featured in stories. This story about Penelope shows something very different and implies an active role for women on Ithaca during the time that Odysseus was away and Telemachus did not really have any clue on what to do with mysterious attacks.

Review:
This book is written from the perspective of Hera, wife of Zeus and she is an omniscient narrator. Claire North uses this perspective to comment on how the Ancient Greeks thought of women and their role in life and this makes the narrator highly sarcastic and ironic at times, which I really love!
Moreover, the chapters are fairly short, which makes this an easier book to read ‘just in between other tasks’. You can easily just read a chapter while waiting on the train or bus or to just take a short break from homework or working.
What I liked a bit less about the writing style was that it was at times unnecessarily difficult to read. I understand that the story takes place in Ancient times and that our view of their use of language is more difficult, formal and prominent, but I think that with the foreign names and the difficulty of following the storyline at times, the language could have been easier, especially with the target audience.
The characters were absolutely great! The goddesses and gods were as sarcastic and sassy as I have always imagined them in my classes on Ancient Greek and multiple habits/norms/rules that I recall from those classes were implemented in the book as well. This really shows that Claire North did their research on this topic and seriously wrote this book as opposed to ‘oh this seems like a fun topic to write about’.
The storyline was really nicely written as well, just at times a bit confusing. The characters also had some trouble understanding what was happening and instead of that being funny or logical, it made the story more confusing, which was a pity. However, research has been done for the plot as well and it made the story 10x more fun to read!

Conclusion:
I would definitely recommend this book if you’re a mythology fan like me! However, try not to read this when you’re in a haste or if you don’t have much concentration, because the story will be very confusing and not fun at all. I’m a big fan of the feminism and the irony that’s woven into the story and I think this is a great retelling/addition to Greek mythology!