Book review: "The Song of Achilles" by Madeline Miller

 I'm just so fortunate, another great book! I'm ending the year very strong with my reads, which is awesome because for a good chunk of quarantine spring (like....April-June) I just couldn't read anything. Hat tip to my friend Chas who recommended this book to me, I remember hearing about it and that it was popular but never investigated it further.

While I was reading this book I was think about this occurrence at UVM. The author is educated in Classics and languages from some of the best schools that this country has to offer. If you're reading a book blog, I can assume that books (or maybe just me) are important to you so I won't preach to the choir about the importance of arts of the humanities in education. I understand that educational institutions are in a tough position but we have to find better ways. 

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled bookish programming.

Patroculus is a young prince in a little to no consequence kingdom in ancient Greece. He accidentally kills someone (a-hole kid+ shove + rocks= oops) and he is sent in exile to be raised by a king in a different part of Greece. He's scared out of his mind, but his homelife wasn't great so maybe this isn't the worst thing that could happen? This king has taken in a few misfit exiles but Patroculus befriends Achilles, the young prince in this new kingdom. Achilles dad is the king but his mom is a straight up terrifying sea goddess (but she's mad because she was raped and kidnapped so, it's not like it's unwarranted. There's a lot of abuse of women in this book, but a couple of shining moments for them too. Not nearly enough but...) His mom goddess has told him that a prophecy about him is that he will be the greatest greek whoever lived. No pressure. P and A grow up together and become very close and eventually fall in love. But then their pretty ideal existence is imploded by what becomes the Trojan War.

If you wanted this movie to be less bloated and ridiculous and more gay, have I got a book for you!

Like all wars everyone thinks that it will be done in like, a year (it's not) and as usual old men talk and young men die. I really enjoyed how the book talks about the tension between all of the kings (many cooks in the kitchen), what day to day life looks like in a ten year siege, and the relationships built around a conflict. A lot of the names will probably sound familiar to you, but you might now know the details of them (Ajax, Pyrrh, etc) or more familiar ones like Odysseus.

It was a fast, interesting, relationships focused read with a setting of the futility and banality of war. And a love story! I give it 4 out of 5 stars!