Circe written by Madeline Miller, Narration by Perdita Weeks

I read both the book alternating with listening to the audiobook. Her voice transforms the beautifully written story into life.

This is my first exposure to Greek Mythology. It turns out the Gods are immortal, vain and only care for power. Circe was born a lesser goddess and had no powers of her own. Used as a pawn by her Father, God of the Sun, Mightest of the Titans, she was banished to the island of Aiaia to appease Zeus. She lived there for centuries and meeting both mortals & Gods alike. She learned that Gods only care for power & mortals seek glory and both are flawed. Men have long oppressed women and even in song and stories for centuries after it will tell of women as bowing down to men. But this is Circe’s story and she tells it from her perspective. She becomes the powerful sorceress/witch of Aiaia and while she hones her craft, she can challenge the Gods not by force but by wits, walked the blackest seas to battle against the oldest God, flexed her power against mortals who try to take advantage of her. While it seemed to have taken centuries for her to become who she was by the end, I was living every detail of it, absorbing the printed word and captivated by the narrators’ voice. Sometimes a century will go by in just a few chapters but that must be how Gods lived.

I came to love the relationship with her and Odysseus’s wife; the beautiful friendship that develops between two women under strenuous circumstances.

“Then I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands.”