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88 Followers
4.5
great! love a greek retelling
Jul 28, 2025
4.5
great! love a greek retelling
Jul 28, 2025
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About the book
A daring and timely feminist retelling of The Iliad from the perspective of the women of Troy who endured it--an extraordinary follow up to The Silence of the Girls from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Regeneration Trilogy and "one of contemporary literature's most thoughtful and compelling writers" (The Washington Post).
Troy has fallen and the victorious Greeks are eager to return home with the spoils of an endless war--including the women of Troy themselves. They await a fair wind for the Aegean.
It does not come, because the gods are offended. The body of King Priam lies unburied and desecrated, and so the victors remain in suspension, camped in the shadows of the city they destroyed as the coalition that held them together begins to unravel. Old feuds resurface and new suspicions and rivalries begin to fester.
Largely unnoticed by her captors, the one time Trojan queen Briseis, formerly Achilles's slave, now belonging to his companion Alcimus, quietly takes in these developments. She forges alliances when she can, with Priam's aged wife the defiant Hecuba and with the disgraced soothsayer Calchas, all the while shrewdly seeking her path to revenge.
Editions (4)
ISBN9780593311325
PublisherKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication Date09/06/22
Pages304
Main GenreNovels
Sub GenreAdventure
FormatSoftcover
LanguageEnglish
Price18.00 €
Reviews & Ratings
50 ratings
2 reviews
3.6
3.6
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bibliophilic_wanderer4 Followers
3.0This was a rather bleak read. As can be expected from a book revolving around the fate of women in a time when they were considered as nothing but property by a majority of people and especially in a time of war. I really enjoyed Briseis' perspective and Barker's description of life in the war camp and the adversity that the women faced in such conditions. However, Briseis' story gets pushed to the sidelines in way of Achilles's story. Which, in a way, is the whole point. It was still jarring to suddenly get Achilles' POV, especially when, having read Miller's Achilles a while back, the writing of Barker is subpar compared to that masterpiece. My pet peeve of having 'OK' and 'for god's sake' in a historical setting with people worshipping multiple gods didn't help. I would recommend this book to lovers of greek mythology and feminist fiction. As someone who's read a lot of both on the other hand, this book doesn't stand out.
Dec 12, 2023
3.0This was a rather bleak read. As can be expected from a book revolving around the fate of women in a time when they were considered as nothing but property by a majority of people and especially in a time of war. I really enjoyed Briseis' perspective and Barker's description of life in the war camp and the adversity that the women faced in such conditions. However, Briseis' story gets pushed to the sidelines in way of Achilles's story. Which, in a way, is the whole point. It was still jarring to suddenly get Achilles' POV, especially when, having read Miller's Achilles a while back, the writing of Barker is subpar compared to that masterpiece. My pet peeve of having 'OK' and 'for god's sake' in a historical setting with people worshipping multiple gods didn't help. I would recommend this book to lovers of greek mythology and feminist fiction. As someone who's read a lot of both on the other hand, this book doesn't stand out.
Dec 12, 2023
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