The full story of Hercules’s twelve labors is rarely included in modern adaptations—I suppose murdering your own children in a fit of madness and then slaying a bunch of monsters in penance was a bit too grim for Disney. But John Wiswell (whose debut Someone You Can Build a Nest In blew me away last year) masterfully tackles this complicated legend in his new novel Wearing the Lion, which came out last month. If you love Greek myth reimaginings like Madeline Miller’s Circe that take on new perspectives and turn classic stories on their heads, you don’t want to miss this one! Continue reading Review of Wearing the Lion—Mythical Monsters and Found Family
Tag: Greek mythology
Review of Circe—A Tale of Monsters and Witches
Circe the Enchantress, Witch of Aiaia, Daughter of the sun god Helios. Most of us probably know her from her dealings with Odysseus, as recounted in Homer’s Odyssey—how she was a powerful witch who turned Odysseus’s men into swine, until Odysseus’s charms won her over and he convinced her to restore them. But she was not always a powerful witch who held the fates of heroes in her hands. Madeline Miller explores the origin story of this unusual nymph and examines familiar Greek myths from a new perspective in her novel Circe, which came out in 2018. Continue reading Review of Circe—A Tale of Monsters and Witches