The Song Of Achilles by Madeline Miller

This honestly didn’t make me cry. When everyone recommended SoA to me, they said “by the end, you will be crying your eyes out.” and that didn’t happen. Don’t get me wrong, it was a sad ending but was perhaps over hyped.

However the ending is what saved my review of the book. The first 10 pages were fast paced and then 150 pages of the book were just dragging on. And honestly, if I wasn’t reading it with a friend, there would have been a good chance that I DNFed it. But when we got to the Trojan War, things started to pick up a bit and the storyline got more interesting and I felt more engaged. 

A couple things I loved about the SoA:

1. 1. The research on this book is incredible. I loved the extra details and the fact that everything is pretty accurate to history. Madeline Miller represented Ancient Greek pretty well, at least the way I feel, and she heavily included other great heroes like Odysesseus.
   2. While the main part of the book is the romance between Patrocules and Achilles, it wasn’t the main focus. By this I mean, they weren’t all lovie dovie and you read about how their relationship impacted history. 
   3. Ms. Miller did YA correctly. She wrote a sex scene that did not have graphic writing. It was simply, you knew they were having sex but it wasn’t described.

• Minor Spoilers: The ending was immaculate. After killing Patrocules, Ms. Miller could have ended the story with a quick little paragraph but no, she decided to finish telling the war in his POV of watching Achilles after death. That is what really gets you into the feels and makes you want to cry.

1. Lastly, the gods. Ms. Miller did the gods dirty but in a realistic way. She represented them exactly how they are. Thetis hated mortals and she would hate the man that would get her son killed, even if Achilles loved him. Apollo shows his true colors throughout the war and indeed shows favoritism to Troy, which is how history portrays him. 

A couple things I disliked about the SoA:

1. I personally felt uncomfortable when they had sex at 15/16. I thought that was weird even though that was technically late for their time and I skipped ahead of that part. It just reading about teenagers having sex is weird.
2. Honestly at times, I felt that Achilles was undeserving of the love that Patrocules had for him and that at times, he took advantage of that. Of course at the end, you see that he really loves him but of course you didn’t really learn till the end.
3. Achilles was an ahole. I’m sorry but not sorry. I know that since this is a retelling it may have been what Ms. Miller thought of Achilles but it made me not what to continue reading.
4. Lastly, Briseis. She plays such a bigger role than what she did and I wish that we got to see more of her, especially since she is referred to as Achilles’ wife/bride in the Iliad by Achilles himself.

That's really it. Other than my issues with it, I thought the book was great, just it didn’t wow me out of the park like everyone says. It to me is a four star book and is a really good novel for it being Ms. Miller’s first. I do believe that everyone really over hyped it. It's a good read but like I said, slow at parts and I had problems with it that I could not look past. 

If you’ve read it, what are your thoughts?