The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

I love when books get famous. Between traditional and self-publishing, so many books come out each year that it’s hard to keep track. When one receives a lot of publicity, I like to see if the hype is justified. Most of the time, I’m pleased, like in the case of Dave Grohl’s memoir, or Educated: A Memoir. Other books that received massive praise have fallen short of the hype, like Where the Crawdads Sing (good, not great) and, unfortunately, The Song of Achilles.

I read Madeline Miller’s Circe in 2020, and while it did start slow, I enjoyed the story. I gushed over the way Miller wrote Circe in the first person and unraveled her beautiful and complicated story. I’d highly recommend Circe. I wanted a similar experience with The Song of Achilles and, sadly, didn’t get it. Miller’s writing is objectively excellent. She writes illustrative prose and has a rhythmic cadence to her words.

But I could not get into the story.

I tried. I read 50% of the book before I had to call it. I didn’t care about the narrator, Patroclus. I was quite keen to learn more about Achilles and the cast of characters, but for some reason, Patroclus was not the storyteller for me.

Now, I’m not here to dump on Miller’s book. I love her knowledge of Greco-Roman history and how she creates these novels based on myths, legends, and lore. I aspire to her style of writing, too. It’s not every day I can’t finish a book, and while I wish all my reviews were sunshine and roses, I feel strongly about sharing the attempts and failures along the way. If you’re reading a book you dislike, you’re not reading a book you love. While it may seem trite to cast off an author’s hard work, there are millions of books wanting to be read. There’s no shame in putting a book down and saying, “not for me.”

On to the next!