From the Bookshelf of Nothing But Reading Challenges…

Circe

Madeline Miller

Start date: October 1, 2020

Finish date: October 31, 2020

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What Members Thought

Jul 28, 2018 Heather - hturningpages rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, loved-it, bookclub

Rating: 5/5 men turned into pigs

Format: Hardback.

What it's like: Similar in style to her first book Song of Achilles.

What I loved: There is so much to love in this book. Circe's character development is so well done, the setting is lush, gorgeous and so well described I felt like I was on the island with Circe, and the writing style is just graceful and effortless. I loved the relationships Circe has and her exploration of what it means to be a God/Goddess, a witch and a mortal. Her finding her Rating: 5/5 men turned into pigs

Format: Hardback.

What it's like: Similar in style to her first book Song of Achilles.

What I loved: There is so much to love in this book. Circe's character development is so well done, the setting is lush, gorgeous and so well described I felt like I was on the island with Circe, and the writing style is just graceful and effortless. I loved the relationships Circe has and her exploration of what it means to be a God/Goddess, a witch and a mortal. Her finding her own sense of power and confidence in a male (and God) driven world, was very empowering to read. There were many a fist pumps while reading this for me haha

What was meh: It's tough to write a book where the characters are stuck on an island and make it feel like it's going somewhere, so at times the plot feels slow. But I think this was really intentional. As a reader you feel the same emotions that Circe herself feels, at times a little restless at being stuck on an albeit beautiful island, watching mortal life pass you by.

Who I'd recommend it to: Anyone who loves Greek stories and myths, stories with powerful women and monsters :D

Favorite quotes:
But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.

He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none.

It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness. If I had ever believed it, I no longer did.

So many years I had spent as a child sifting his bright features for his thoughts, trying to glimpse among them one that bore my name. But he was a harp with only one string, and the note it played was himself.
“You have always been the worst of my children,” he said. “Be sure to not dishonor me.”
“I have a better idea. I will do as I please, and when you count your children, leave me out.

I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open.

The thought was this: that all my life had been murk and depths, but I was not a part of that dark water. I was a creature within it.

When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist. ...more

7 likes · Like · see review

Aug 17, 2025 Avigail rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: challenges, audiobook, physical-book, 1-2025, own, audible, podcast-rec, youtube-rec, author-s-writing, friend-recomendation

As someone who grew up with the old Greek stories, I have always known Circe only in passing—a witch in Homer’s Odyssey who turns Odysseus’s men into swine. She was a shadow on the edge of a greater hero’s journey. Madeline Miller, however, gives her back her voice and makes her the heart of her own epic.

In Miller’s telling, Circe is the daughter of Helios, the sun god, plain and disregarded among her radiant siblings. When she discovers the forbidden craft of witchcraft, the gods banish her to ...more

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