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The Song of Achilles

Madeline Miller

Start date: June 2, 2019

Finish date: June 30, 2019

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What Members Thought

Jul 16, 2018 Heather - hturningpages rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: lgbtq-characters, loved-it, favorites

Rating: 5/5 arrows of Apollo

Format: ebook. In the enhanced version there are great video clips of Gregory McGuire interviewing Madeline Miller!

What it's like: It's like getting your heart ripped out of your chest in slow motion lol

What I loved: GAAHHHH. Everything? YUP. Pretty much everything. I've read the Iliad so I knew the general story and what was going to happen but I fell so in love with Achilles and Patroclus' relationship I was in complete denial until the very end. I love their coming Rating: 5/5 arrows of Apollo

Format: ebook. In the enhanced version there are great video clips of Gregory McGuire interviewing Madeline Miller!

What it's like: It's like getting your heart ripped out of your chest in slow motion lol

What I loved: GAAHHHH. Everything? YUP. Pretty much everything. I've read the Iliad so I knew the general story and what was going to happen but I fell so in love with Achilles and Patroclus' relationship I was in complete denial until the very end. I love their coming of age together, the heartbreak associated with the loss of innocence, and the debate over whether it's more satisfying to live a legendary life or a long one,. The conflicts that arise over that choice were fascinating and heartbreaking to me, especially since Patroclus is so understanding of the dilemma. (I'd be like UH HELL NO WE OUTTA HERE LOL). Although the story and characters are ancient, the Madeline Miller makes them feel fresh and alive with the stakes as high as they can be. She breathes new life into these characters and you can't help but get attached, even if you know you shouldn't.

What was meh: I was SOOOO on Patroclus' side by the end that Achilles was starting to drive me a little nuts. She was showing how his weakness is pride but all I wanted to do was punch him in the face lol also I may have screamed a little bit when Patroclus got in that chariot, and THEN decided to climb a wall for no good goddam reason but that's my own pain and resentment talking haha

Who I'd recommend it to: Anyone who loves Greek stories and myths, stories with powerful love stories and epic battles.

Favorite quotes: Every single one of these makes me want to cry lol THEIR LOVE IS SO BEAUTIFUL.
And as we swam, or played, or talked, a feeling would come. It was almost like fear, in the way it filled me, rising in my chest. It was almost like tears, in how swiftly it came. But it was neither of those, buoyant where they were heavy, bright where they were dull.

I understood, suddenly, the weight of Chiron’s words: war was what the world would say Achilles was born for. That his hands and swift feet were fashioned for this alone—the cracking of Troy’s mighty walls. They would throw him among thousands of Trojan spears and watch with triumph as he stained his fair hands red.

Had she really thought I would not know him? I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.

When he died, all things swift and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.

He had chosen to become a legend, and this was the beginning. He hesitated, and I touched my hand to his, where the crowd could not see it. “Go,” I urged him. “They are waiting for you.”

I am made of memories. “Speak, then.”
The memories come, and come. She listens, staring into the grain of the stone. We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both.

IN THE DARKNESS, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun. ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Jun 07, 2021 Haze rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2021-books-read

This is one of those books that I have no idea how to write about because there's just too many emotions!!

I read Circe first about a year ago, and I loved it, and now that I've finished The Song of Achilles and am struggling to find the words, I thought I might go back to Circe and see what I wrote about it, and apparently, I DID NOT WRITE A REVIEW FOR IT!

They both transcend any words I could use to express my feelings about them!

To be fair, I did love Circe more because I relate to her story ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Oct 19, 2012 Russ rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, 21st-century

In The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller imagines a full life for Achilles, as told by his companion Patroclus. Miller pieces together a childhood for Achilles and Patroclus by pulling clues from various mythological sources and fills in with her own knowledge and research. The ancient Greece she presents is vivid with realistic details and at the same time is full of mythological creatures. Rather than trying to explain away Achilles' half-divine parentage or his tutelage by the half-horse Chi ...more

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Dec 04, 2019 Deanna M rated it really liked it

Based on Achilles from Greek mythology. Told from patroclus’s point of view. It’s pretty okay. They’re lovers and it’s cute.

1 like · Like · see review

Sep 19, 2021 Amanda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: lgbt-secondary-characters, historical-fiction, fiction, format-audible, lgbt-main-characters, angels-devils-and-gods, pov-first-person, magical-or-super-powers, lgbt, favorites

Fall 2021 (September);
~ San Antonio Library Book Club

This one and the next one (also, by Miller) are going to run together a little because I read them so quickly back to back. I found myself quite surprised this book was from the point of view of Patroclus, but it made so much sense truly. Who better was there to tell the true tale of Achilles, from beginning to end, all the best and the worst in as honest could be taken, while having the open eyes but still loving the man/demi-god.

I knew the ...more

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