#GreekDecember was, more than anything, a throwback and reminder of why reading is my favorite pastime. I’ve just recently finished decluttering my bookshelf, and I encountered all the historical YA fiction novels that I enjoyed when I was in elementary and high school. I realized that even until now I still gravitate towards those kinds of stories. I think you can easily see that from the selection of books I chose for the last month of the-year-that-shall-not-be-named. It’s funny because I also finished playing God of War 4 in the same month. And when I thought about it after I had finished, it also fits into the whole genre of historical fiction and retellings. God of War is, after all, another story of another son of Zeus. Where haven’t we heard that before? Turns out, even if my hobbies seem random and disconnected to me, they’re really not. Apparently, my interests all kind of come from the same root. Anyway, classics have always been intimidating to me. Yes, I like to read. Yes, I like classics. Yes, I’ve read a fair share of them, but they’re always scary. I always need something to make it seem a little bit less intimidating. I think this genre does exactly that, which is why I mentioned a few times in the reviews that if you’re looking for a way to get into classics without actually diving head first into Homer or Virgil, then these books may be a good place to start. I love that these stories are still so alive until now. You’d think we’d be tired of hearing about Hector or Achilles, but it seems that people are still interested in them. I certainly am. I’m still on the hunt for a good Hector and Andromache retelling. Please, authors!! Get on it! One insight I got from one of the many booktubers I follow is that the way the classics are analyzed and retold says a lot about the generation they were published by. The current generation - my generation - seems to be transfixed with the reclamation narrative, specifically for women. That makes sense, especially if you look at current events, from #MeToo to #HijaAko - its local counterpart - to numerous other protests and pushbacks that have occurred in the last few years. Madeline Miller's Circe is a far cry from the Circe that was nothing more than a bitter manhater that turned men into pigs without rhyme or reason. The Lavinia in Virgil's poem wasn't even deigned a voice in the Aeneid. Natalie Haynes' Helen was coerced by Aphrodite's powers into going away with Paris. This doesn't take away blame; it is absolutely possible that she left Menelaus of her own volition, but at least there was an effort to comprehend her character better in this retelling. There are probably dozens more women whose stories have not yet been reclaimed, and I can't wait to see where else authors will go to give these stories a different voice. I initially set out to read 2 other books - Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood - but eventually lost steam and set them aside for another time. The Greek retelling fire will come back, that's for sure. That’s it for my first ever roundup! I did thoroughly enjoy doing this for the month of December. I think I’ll be doing it for the foreseeable future, so stay tuned for January’s TBR and theme! *click on the headers for full reviews
LAVINIA BY URSULA K. LE GUIN Lavinia is a retelling of the Aeneid told from the perspective of the titular character. Favorite quote: “- How could one possibly end a story with a marriage? - It does seem more like a beginning than an end.” Rating: ☕☕☕☕☕/5 *Goodreads rating: 3.80 CIRCE BY MADELINE MILLER Circe is a retelling of the Greek myth from the point of view of the titular character. Favorite quote: “Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.” Rating: ☕☕☕☕☕/5 *Goodreads rating: 4.26/5 THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS BY PAT BARKER The Silence of the Girls is a retelling of the Iliad from the perspective of Briseis. Favorite quote: “They won’t want the brutal reality of conquest and slavery. They won’t want to be told about the massacres of men and boys, the enslavement of women and girls. They won’t want to know we were living in a rape camp.” Rating: ☕☕☕☕/5 *Goodreads rating: 3.91/5 A THOUSAND SHIPS BY NATALIE HAYNES A Thousand Ships is a collection of voices from the women of The Iliad and The Odyssey. Favorite quote: “This was never the story of one woman, or two. It was the story of all of them. A war does not ignore half the people whose lives it touches. So why do we?” Rating: ☕☕☕/5 *Goodreads rating: 4.15/5
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