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Circe

Madeline Miller

Start date: May 1, 2025

Finish date: May 31, 2025

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What Members Thought

May 14, 2021 Saar The Book owl rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: team-moist

Well, it's me and it's not this book, but I didn't felt the connection with it. It has good reviews, though, but still...I love Greek mythology and read lots about it when I was younger. The story of Circe is interesting and the mythology stories are well fit together, but the story itself felt a bit 'flat' for me. It was good, but there was no deepness in it and that was what I've missed. What I liked most was the Minotaurus and Scylla.
Basically, the story of Circe is a story with a complete ci ...more

9 likes · Like · see review

Nov 16, 2019 Jamie (TheRebelliousReader) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: adult, read-on-my-kindle, was-expecting-more, for-a-challenge, 3-stars, retelling, 2019, e-book, historical, look-at-the-pretty-cover

3 stars. This was okay. A perfectly fine read but with all of the rave reviews I’ve heard I was expecting a lot more than just fine. I honestly don't have much to say about it so this will be short. I don’t know if I’m just in a mood or what but nothing I’ve been reading lately has been that interesting. With the exception of a few, I’ve not been loving the books I’ve been reading unfortunately.

To be fair this was beautifully written; such gorgeous and lyrical prose. This was my first book by M ...more

8 likes · Like · see review

Mar 24, 2019 Vicki rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, pages_301-400, audiobook, fantasy, retellings-and-fairy-tales, mythology, uno_2019

I had so much fun reading this one! I used to teach high school, and one of the units we had was on mythology and I taught five books from The Odyssey, so in parts of the book I felt like I was visiting old friends. I even loved it when I read about Ithaca because I knew of it. It was the land that Odysseus was King of and he left when he went to fight in the war that took him twenty years to get back home from, ten due to war and ten due to his battles/struggles getting home mainly because Pose I had so much fun reading this one! I used to teach high school, and one of the units we had was on mythology and I taught five books from The Odyssey, so in parts of the book I felt like I was visiting old friends. I even loved it when I read about Ithaca because I knew of it. It was the land that Odysseus was King of and he left when he went to fight in the war that took him twenty years to get back home from, ten due to war and ten due to his battles/struggles getting home mainly because Poseidon was angry that he hurt his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus.

Circe created a mixture of emotions for me: anger, sadness, happiness, excitement, fear, and so much more. One of the most "anxious" scenes and one that I never have had to deal with but know of mothers who have, is the scene where (view spoiler)

I also really enjoyed reading some about Scylla. When she was first introduced in this book, I thought, "The only Scylla I ever knew of was the sea monster. I was wondering and had planned to look it up until I read that Circe did what she did and that turned Scylla into something different. In the story of The Odyssey Athena was Odysseus's guide and he had two ways he could take his men. One was by way of Charybdis but if she came up as they were passing, he'd lost all of his men, including his own life. But by way of Scylla, he'd have the possibility of losing only a certain number (six, I think) but he had the chance of not losing all. So they went by way of Scylla and she (view spoiler)

I felt so bad that Circe wasn't looked upon favorably by her father, especially. She ended up having her own set of powers and every person is worthy of love, especially one's own child. I know it was a different time, but still.

I love this book and I really enjoyed reading all the mythology that was in it and having my mind refreshed about some of the myths and mythological creatures.

Recommendation: I highly recommend this one, even if you don't care for mythology. I'd take it slower and look up some of the gods and goddesses and creatures that you don't know. It's a high quality, very well-written book. ...more

5 likes · Like · see review