Mostly Queer Book Club discussion

This is a dedicated space to discuss our September read, Circe by Madeline Miller. It won popular vote in our pole!

finished it this afternoon. UGHHHHH... so many feels. I think I'm obsessed with the main character.

this contains major spoilers so read at your own risk i guess???

fair warning: i didn't read this book this month because i just did not have the time BUT i read it last year with a friend and took notes then, so bear with me while i try to make sense of my insane ramblings and remember exactly what went on lmao.

i wasn't sure how i was going to feel about circe as a character at first because the bullshit she pulled with the fisher boy and her desperation/the way she was so passive with her family in the beginning. but then i really came to respect her as she got angrier lmao. i read this book at a critical point in my journey with therapy and i think the idea of female anger really spoke to me for the first time here. you get to see her embrace herself for who she is and really step into the power she'd been told that she did not possess. that resonated with me at the time and it's something i still think about to this day.

i mentioned this in the open discussion thread before, but i think it bears repeating that madeline miller did such a great job with the complexity of circe's character. she is certainly not all good, but not all bad either. i feel like i say this in every monthly discussion thread, but that balance is so important to me. nothing is black and white and this whole story lies in that gray area i love so much. this isn't the idealized or romanticized story of a goddess by any means. she goes through so much in this novel...

and actually, the thing i remember most about reading this last year was the point in which i accidentally kind of guessed the ending without realizing it. i was thinking about how human this particular goddess felt to me with her flaws and struggles when i remembered talking about the greeks' deities in school some years before. it's always said that the christian god made humanity in his image, but the greeks made their gods in their own image. the members of the greek pantheon are petty, emotional, and arrogant just as often (if not more) as they are generous and kind. it speaks to their own arrogance, of course, but i just find that notion so enchanting?? they projected their own humanity onto the infinite in an attempt to connect with the vast cosmos. beautiful. and then the ending to this book hit me and i got so emotional about it.

this may be a hot take, but i actually enjoyed this book slightly more than the song of achilles! not very often do i get to read a woman character written by a woman in the genres i gravitate toward??? i shudder to think about stephen king's portrayal in the horror genre and then the fantasy genre... i won't even go there. you can tell madeline miller really put a lot of thought and love into this book and i adore it :c i want to be circe lmao.

ill come back and type something soon-- ive had a disorganized week!

okay, sorry for the lag! this book was amazing and such a fun read— Miller really impressed me with TSoA but i think Circe is what pushed her into my fave author spot. i would most definitely read this again!! idk if the copies everyones read has the book club discussion in the back or her interview, but i think it would be fun to discuss her reasons behind writing the book!

oooof here i am, better late than never haha. i have been in a serious reading slump, and somehow circe didn't help that much, i just finished it yesterday after struggling with the audio book for two months. maybe was i expecting too much from it?
it is objectively a good book that's for sure, and i agree with everything that has been said so far (madeline miller's writing is phenomenal), but i don't know, the book itself kind of fell flat and didn't work for me :/

@roman i didn't have the interview, but it sounds amazing and i want it now...

@anaïs reading slumps are the worst! sorry this book fell flat. i feel like it definitely did have a more subtle vibe than tsoa

hi i just joined this group so im late to this discussion… but i feel the need to also say a few things about circe because for me, it’s one of the greatest books! after reading TsoA, i was really deeply convinced that Madeline Miller couldn’t write anything i won’t like (and i still believe so) and so circe, for me personally, was such a fun read! I already read it two times and equally enjoyed those. What really stood out to me was the suppression of women and also the regaining of power here. I think if you look at it from a feminist angle, the author did quite an amazing job! (i’m sorry i just had to- it’s one of my favorites :))

@anaïs i completely understand! sometimes you cant get into it no matter how hard you try, but what matters is you tried!

@andrea ill try to find a digital version online and share it somewhere when i get to my pc next! its really interesting to read!

@jools while i didnt love it as much as TSoA, it was still so fun to read! i really enjoy her writing style and the new perspective to Circe as her own person and protagonist instead of the just “The Witch Of Aeaea” in The Odyssey!