Hey! What's up, you guys? It's Connor, and today
I'm gonna be doing a book review for The
Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. This
is really shiny. We need to fix this.
I'll hold it like that. If you guys don't
know, The Song of Achilles is about
Achilles and Patroclus - or Patroclus is
how the narrator said it. I listened to
this on audiobook, and it follows their
relationship together as they grow up
and then eventually when they go to war
against the Trojans. If you guys don't
know, Achilles is the daughter... No, not
the daughter. The son of a sea nymph and
a mortal human. There was a prophecy
about the sea nymph that her child would
be greater than their father, and so the
gods forced her to be with a mortal so
that her son would not be greater than
the other gods. And so because of this
forced, basically like rape situation, the
sea nymph now hates humans pretty much
and only likes her son. He is greater
than all the other humans. Patroclus is
the son of a king but is exiled, so he
doesn't really have any status. He's
always been a bit of a weird one, and he
has not been accepted into any type of
friend group ever .So they're both a
little bit of outsiders: Achilles
because he's so great and amazing at
everything, and Patroclus because he's
weird and people don't like him. But the
two eventually find each other, and they
become fast friends, and then lovers, and
then soul mates-kind of thing. As usual
my book reviews, I'm gonna go through my
pros, go through my cons, giving my rating,
and be done . My first pro for this book
was that the writing style was just so
straightforward, so simple, but also
beautiful. I thought Madeline Miller had
a really good way with words, and I
really could picture everything that was
happening. I could really feel how it was
to live back then because she actually
has done probably a lot of research
because she got a lot of things right.
There were relationships between two men
in ancient Greece. They weren't in a
positive light,
but they didn't not exist. They were
there, and they happened. But Achilles was
so great that people needed things from
him anyway, so they treated him better
than if he was just a regular guy that
was having a relationship with another
guy. Speaking of that relationship, I
think that the relationship between Patroclus Patroclus [pronounced differently] whatever and
Achilles was really, really believable. It
started off very organically and then
grew as the novel went along. It started
off as them being strangers, and then
kind of getting to know each other, and
then getting to know each other really
well, and then developing feelings for
each other. So I really liked seeing the
relationship unfold throughout this.
A pro for me that was unexpected was I
really liked the character of Achilles's
mother. She was a lot different than I
thought she was going to be in this
story. In myths,
Thetis is Achilles mom. That's the sea nymph. She is more portrayed as just loving
Achilles a lot, but in this one you
really got to see what probably would
have happened. She was forced to be with this mortal man, and he basically raped
her to have Achilles. And so she hates
Peleus, and so she's very angry all the
time. And I really liked that
interpretation of her, and it was just
accurate because the gods in ancient
Greek myth are not human. Ao her not
caring about human life was like so
accurate because gods don't care about
human life, at least ancient Greek gods. I
feel like the only one that does is
probably Prometheus because he gave fire
to humans, but yeah, so I really liked her
character a lot. It made so much sense
that she would be so angry, and hate so
many peopl,e and be mean to Patroclus. I
just really liked her character, and I
loved whenever she was in the scene. This
book is written in the point of view of
Patroclus, and I thought that was a
really cool take on it. I didn't know how
it was gonna be handled, but it does it
really well. And I really liked seeing
Patroclus's view on the happenings
that were going on. His filter on what
was happening in Achilles's life was very
interesting and compelling, and I just
wanted to keep reading and keep reading.
And I think I listened to the audiobook
all in like one day or something. As I
said before, I knew this story already
because I was a Classical Studies major
and Odyssey and the Iliad are things
that you have to read if your Classical
Studies major. I already knew the story
of Achilles and Patroclus and what
happens in the relationship and and all
of that, but it didn't detract from my
enjoyment of this novel. I thought that
it might, and that's why I was hesitant
going into this novel. But I loved it. It
was so entertaining and so engrossing, so
I definitely recommend it to people that
are already familiar with the Achilles
story.
You're still gonna enjoy this book. I
also liked this take on the mythology
aspect of this story. Yes, there are gods
involved as I talked about before
Thetis is Achilles's mother, and she's a
sea goddess. And the magic is there, but
it's not overwhelming. You're not gonna
be overwhelmed by the number of gods or
anything. The author definitely cut out a
lot of the gods' roles in the Trojan War.
You see a couple, but you don't see
nearly as many that were actually
involved. And so I think that people that
don't necessarily like fantasy
will still like this book because the
fantasy elements are very minimal, but
they're still there, so they're gonna
have a little bit for people that love
fantasy as well. Like, there are the gods.
There are prophecies. And Achilles is a
Greek hero, so he has extra strength, and
power, and everything like that. So he is
half-god, so I just - I loved it. I loved
the amount of magic she decided to
include basically. But don't go into this
thinking that it's going to be swashbuckling,
action-packed all the time. This
is a very quiet story, but it's very
powerful anyway. I just love that this
novel focused in on love and duty,
respect and humanity, but then also
explored the more negative sides of
humanity like stubbornness, hubris, and
the need to leave a legacy. Overall, I
just thought this novel was fantastic. So
good. So amazing. I was trying to think of
some cons for this book, but I honestly
could not think of one thing about this
book that I really didn't like. I gave
this book 5 stars. I definitely,
definitely recommend it for people that
like mythology, Greek history, or just
amazing stories in general. And yeah, I
really do hope that you guys check this
one out. So that's gonna be my review of
The Song of Achilles by Madeline -
Madeline [pronounced differently] I'm not sure - Miller. If you liked it, please give it a big thumbs up and
comment down below if you've read this
book. If you haven't, are you interested
in reading it now? Do you have any other
Achilles retelling stories that you
would recommend? Leave those down in the
comments, and I will talk to you guys
next time. Bye!
