Thought Train to Pusan

Madeline Miller has such a knack for taking characters and legends that we may already know some about, but then delving much deeper into them, allowing us to see a whole other side to the story and person within. There is a particular beauty here in what she does to the story of Circe , giving a minor passing character from a well-known story of another, and giving her the spotlight to show us there is so much more to her story than that of a cameo to some other hero. And despite there maybe not being a big battle or war that is often associated with the heroes of ancient Greek myths, there is a heroism to Circe, in the battles she fights on a daily basis with her family, with the everyday man, and even with her own identity. As such, I find moments of relation to her struggles and the pain she works through during her long existence. Circe is the story of the minor Goddess, Circe, daughter of the Titan Helios, who never quite fits in with the other Gods and ...

In anticipation of Madeline Miller’s new novel, Circe , being released (it just arrived in the mail!) I decided to do a reread of The Song of Achilles , which was one of my favorite reads from the past couple of years. And I will say, it was just as good the second time around, if not a little more painful in seeing more of the foreshadowing and understanding the deeper meaning of certain lines earlier in the novel before the course of action takes place. Okay, I know that the overall plot is pretty well established and known already, but this is a little bit of a different telling of the old myths of Achilles at the end of the day. The Song of Achilles is essentially the story of the Greek hero Achilles/ The Iliad as told from the point of view of Achilles’ closest companion, Patroclus; Patroclus is an exiled prince taken in by Achilles’ father as a child, and the two young Princes soon become close companions, growing up together and finding how deep their ...

--> I first read Sally Green’s Half Bad Trilogy of YA novels (including Half Bad , Half Wild , and Half Lost ) two years ago, and at the time I really enjoyed it. But lately I’ve been thinking a lot about these YA novels that involve young people standing up to injustices or find themselves fighting for something greater than themselves, what with everything going on in our world today: in this case it’s not per say exclusively the young people who are fighting, but they are the majority, as it is they who are facing a whole life of nothing but more and more injustice to come, and those who are able to bring in a new generation with new ideas. The Half Bad Trilogy focuses on a society of witches that blends in with the regular world (“fains” as humans are called), but there is a council of “White Witches” that govern activity and search to hunt and kill all the “Black Witches” within the UK. In other regions of Europe, the White and Black witches basically just l...