Since I really, really loved Madeline Miller’s Circe, I could not have been more enchanted with her niece Medea’s story and the way Higgins (re)told it. The book follows all the way to the end of the Odysseus, but I always thought that Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad was a better ending to the story of Penelope and Odysseus. And of course Helen, Helen who I had sympathy for while reading, Helen who is smarter than she appears who knows that she has no way to get out of something that was honestly between three goddesses who caused so much war and strife. The vast portions of their lives women spent weaving are ubiquitously reflected in ancient mythology. The book is exactly what it tells itself to be, it's a telling of the Greek Myths, so many that you kind of lose count, and they're all told in a compelling and enthusiastic way, and they're also short.

But, the way in which it is told sort of left me feeling unable to connect with the people and story. We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed. This is supposed to be a ~feminist retelling~ but that is only true because 1) each chapter title is the name of a woman and 2) the author is literally just TELLING you the same Greek stories over again.She includes deft Homeric epithets (“the deathless goddess”), unobtrusive embedded quotations of resonant couplets from Sophoclean tragedy, and luscious Homeric similes at unexpected moments. What I did expect from this book was a slightly more academic retelling of the myths and I did expect there to be a more feminist perspective on the stories, especially when you look at the table of contents and the chapters are all named after women in the mythology. Enjoyed how the author captured Penelope not as “the loyal one” (her epithet) but as someone who was simmering in anger, rage and grief hearing of Odysseus’ affairs, as well as her uncertainty and distrust of him when he comes home- I also immensely loved Penelope’s lamentation of the goddess Athena. Penelope is the last of the eight mythical weavers Higgins selects as her chapter headings; so rich is ancient mythology in these artists-in-yarn that she omits several more, including the nymph Calypso who loves and loses Odysseus, and Idaea, the wicked queen who blinded her stepsons with her shuttle. However, if we ignore all that, I did still really enjoy listening to this one on my back and forth work commutes.

The girl was a powerful enchantress, like her aunt Circe; she knew how to find and mix herbs that bring sleep, madness and death; how to force rivers to run backwards, how to quench blazing fires, to make forests move. This is a retelling that brings a wonderful, overdue female perspective to the world of the Greek myths. Finally, the description of this book as a feminist retelling is also pretty misleading, as there wasn't really any particular focus put onto the women.

Whilst I can see why some might like the writing, for me it kind of read like a textbook at times due to just how much information and different stories the author was trying to cover. If you want a general overview of Greek mythology but like with humor and wit and joviality while still focusing on the actual myths, lol THIS IS NOT THE BOOK. The only issue I had with this was when it came to retelling Heracles and his story- it wasn’t particularly linear, so if you were someone who maybe hadn’t read the myths it might seem a little confusing. Orpheus sings a heart-rending lament for Eurydice; a pale narcissus nods in the breeze, “throwing up its delicate scent”. The trial wasn't even needed, you could've just left it at the murder as a lot of the stories get no closure.

I’ve never read a compendium of Greek mythology quite like this; written variously from the POV’s female characters such as Penelope and Helen — they narrate their own myths as well as those of ancient gods and goddesses (and famous heroes, too!Higgins does a great job of following Greek myths through many of its famous women, but they are all linked by the loom and their weave depicting some of the terrible things the gods and goddesses have done.