I knew I was going to like this, but I didn’t quite expect to like it as much as I did. Sometime in the near future, we’re going to hit the saturation point for Greek mythology retellings in the literary marketplace, but it seems we’re at the peak right now, and it can be hard to sort out the copycat clones from the worthwhile without reading them first. Stone Blind is one of the worthwhile. It’s not enough to just retell a myth, even if you are making women the center of the story for the first time. For me, these retellings have got to have a voice, and this one certainly does. Especially if you do the audio version, which is narrated by the author, but more on that later.
I actually didn’t know too much about Medusa before this, other than the snakes for hair thing, and the turning people to stone with her gaze thing. I’m sure I’ve seen more than a handful of pop culture representations over the years (and no doubt, she made at least one appearance in the Percy Jackson books, though I can’t remember for sure right now), so she’s just more of a zeitgeist thing for me. But really, when you actually stop and think about it, what did she ever to do to deserve her fate? Absolutely nothing! What, born with snakes for hair? Not her fault! She could still be a fun friend with her eyes closed or blindfolded. Let her live her life!
I’ve seen some reviews complaining about this not having enough Medusa in it, but I actually find this really interesting. First of all, spoilers, but SPOILERS she’s the narrator, so every word in it is Medusa’s story END SPOILERS, but also . . . there isn’t really that much to Medusa’s story! In the original myth, the most interesting thing about her is her death, and who killed her, and how he used her head as a weapon and made her into a thing. So what Haynes does here is highlight the absurdity of that, of this person who through no fault of her own ends up in this tragic situation, because of the greed, pettiness, arrogance, and abuses of people more powerful and less thoughtful and caring than she is.
If you’re going to read this, I recommend having the audiobook at least on hand to listen to every now and then. There are some scenes where Haynes GOES FOR IT, changing up her narration style to emphasize emotion, and she drips with it, and other scenes where she takes already funny bits of narrative and dialogue and dials the humor up to 11 with her comic timing (she’s a comedian). The bit with the crows was probably my favorite humorous scene, and the bit where the narrator “breaks cover” (hard to talk about without spoilers) was pretty powerful because I did not see it coming at all, and I got hit in multiple senses at the same time with the change in style. Extremely effective, is what it is.
There’s actually quite a lot to unpack in this relatively small book (only eight hours by audio), and I already feel like I need to re-read it. I probably will since this is a book club pick for one of my IRL book clubs, but the meeting isn’t until September! So I will have forgotten nearly everything by then, I’m sure. I will make sure to have my tabs at the ready for my second read, which I am very much looking forward to. This has a very strong chance of getting bumped up to five stars.
[4.5 stars]
