I love mythology. I am the stereotypical gay boy who grew up devouring every piece of mythology I could get my hands on as a kid. So when I heard about a retelling of the Trojan War from the point of view of the women involved, I was amped! But, dear reader, I made it 40% and then decided that I could not do any more. My first DNF of the year.
The structure of the book is that the muse of poetry is helping some unnamed poet (maybe they were named later but who knows?) write the story of the women of the Trojan War. Who is this person? Why do I care about them? Am I supposed to accept that the muses are real? There just wasn’t any reason given why they were writing this story to justify their inclusion. Perhaps something is revealed later, like he’s the son of one of these women or something, but not enough is given throughout for me to care.
And there were so many other characters! The book kept jumping around from one character or group of characters to another, so I didn’t have enough time to really sink in to any of their stories or motivations. Every time that I felt like I was starting to sink into a character’s story, motivations, or wishes, the chapter ended and we were on to the next not to return to that character for many, many more chapters. What made the character jumps especially confusing is that there were also some time jumps to before and after the Trojan Horse was introduced to Troy.
I’m sure that this is an enjoyable book for some, but not me.
