For reasons unclear to me, it took me a long time to read this book. I checked it out of the library over twenty times before I finally sat down to read it. I tried listening on audio and decided it was never going to work out, so I read the book and I am glad I did. It was beautifully written and what a journey to read. Madeline Miller is a talented writer and it absolutely shows in this beautifully told story of Achilles and the Odyssey.
I haven’t read YA in a long time but this was a fast and involving read. So much angst. Drew was my favorite character. He surprised you. He grew. He was funny.
I know most people liked this book but it not only annoyed me but it also left me feeling uneasy for a whole day after i read it. This is not really a mystery, it’s more like a slasher movie in a novel. Not a lot of time for any of the characters to be developed. It wasn’t for me.
Like others in the series this book is full of exercises to help you connect with yourself, figure out your values and what guides you, figure out how to cope with things that make you anxious or get in the way of your peace and figure out your purpose and goals in life. There are many many different exercises so at least one is bound to appeal to anyone who is on a journey to find and cultivate more peace in their lives. Each exercise is relatively short and impactful. Recommended.
with gratitude to edelweiss and quarto group for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review
Unfortunately this one wasn’t a good fit for me. I know Banville is an excellent writer with an incredible command of the English language. And yet this story was full of unlikeable characters, 2 dimensional women, really long run-on sentences that became indecipherable. It might easily be that I missed something and that this novel is smart on some level that is beyond my understanding. Alas, it did not meet the mark for me.
with gratitude to netgalley and Knopf for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
This is a rich and layered novel with a long cast of generations of characters that span 150+ years and revolve around traveling through the country and a train with passengers connected in seemingly non-obvious ways. There are a lot of characters in this novel and yet they are each layered with rich backstories and it’s easy to get attached to each and every one of them. An excellent excellent novel.
I tried but finally DNF’ing at 39% so I will not rate this one. While some of the ideas in the book are interesting and welcoming to me, the style in which this is written is really hard for me to follow and causes the ideas to lack depth in a way that makes my mind meander.
