Greek Myths: A new retelling of your favourite myths that puts female characters at the heart of the story
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By Charlotte Higgins, and and, Chris Ofili
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1 review
In this powerful new collection, Charlotte Higgins foregrounds Greek mythology’s most enduring heroines.
Here are the myths of Heracles and Theseus, the Trojan war, Thebes and Argos and Athens. They are stories of love and desire, adventure and magic, destructive gods, helpless humans, fantastical creatures and resourceful witches.
In this telling the female characters take centre stage as Athena, Helen, Circe, Penelope and others weave these stories into elaborate imagined tapestries. In Charlotte Higgins’s thrilling new interpretation of these ancient stories, their tales combine to form a dazzling, sweeping epic of storytelling.
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Review 1
I feel like this is a great introduction to Greek Myths and the story without having to take in a lot of information which made this really engaging for me and easy to access. I enjoyed learning about the characters and it is accessible as I kept picking it up and could follow on easily. I’ve previously read Greek retellings with female characters, but I thought this did book did well to stand apart in its own way from these. I would recommend this to someone who would like to learn more about the female characters in Greek Mythology.
Review 2
This is a pacy read (I read in one sitting) and the premise of the book is that each chapter is about one woman, who is within the myths, and the author weaves these stories together so that they are all entwined. I really enjoyed it, thank you for my copy. Our group loved discussing it and overall was liked by all as something a bit different for us!
Review 3
I really enjoyed it – I could picture all of the events and it felt like a film due to the great descriptions. It covers a few stories that are linked so picturing this and the characters helped me with the flow of the book.
Review 4
I thought it was interesting but not quite my style. It was good to push myself to read something different however. As with most classical myths there are some repulsive male gods and characters so I would issue a trigger warning for mentions of sexual assault (although it is not described thankfully). It’s also quite violent but again I think this is accurate to the old style of Greek Myths.
Review 5
This book was beautiful in both prose and illustrations. It’s a new retelling of well-known Greek myths told in an accessible way. I loved the idea of the female stories and characters being linked and forming a tapestry of woven stories and events.
Review 6
I enjoyed this new take on retelling Greek Myths from a female perspective – really interesting!
Review 7
There was a great sense of time and place, and it was easy to follow these chapters and characters as it was structured in chronological order. Would definitely recommend.
