The Song of Achilles is sort of a retelling of the Iliad--the Trojan War, Oedipus, and of course, the story of Achilles. The story is told from the unique perspective of Patroclus, who is Achilles lover.
Their relationship is slowly developed which makes The Song of Achilles more of a love story. But there is plenty of battles and twelve-years of war to keep up the action.
As I said, I'm not much of a mythology scholar, so I enjoyed this story, whether it follows the classic myths or not. Patroclus' perspective is unique. I still get the characters confused. Their names all sound the same to me. But for the most part, I kept track of what was going on.
We pretty much all know that it ends for both of these characters, but I was waiting for the arrow in the heel (I did know at least that much) but it never happened.
If you are a fan of mythology, then you should definitely put this Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction (2012) on your list. The sequel, Circe, is releasing in April and that was my motivation for reading The Song of Achilles now. I have a copy of Circe that I'm hoping to get to soon.
Published by Ecco, 2012
Copy obtained from the library
416 pages
Rating: 4/5
I took a mythology course in college hoping it would turn me on to the myths and make me feel more knowledgable about the whole topic. Turned out I didn't enjoy it one bit. Very sad.
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