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“An epic spanning thousands of years that’s also a keep-you-up-all-night page-turner.”
— Ann Patchett, #1 New York Times bestselling author
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“This is as close as you will ever come to entering the world of mythology as a participant.”
— Margaret George, New York Times bestselling author
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“Miller…seamlessly grafts modern concepts of self-hood and independence to her mystical reveries of smoke and silver, nectar and bones. Grade: A-.”
— Entertainment Weekly
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“Narrator Weeks raises this eloquent reimagining to new heights with her stunning performance…mesmerizing listeners in this intimate first-person retelling.”
— Booklist (starred audio review)
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“Author Madeline Miller and narrator Perdita Weeks transform the ancient Greek drama of Circe, witch of Aeaea and daughter of Helios, into a fresh and vibrant tale for contemporary listeners…Weeks’ cool British intonations and attuned performance capture Circe’s evolution from youthful uncertainty amid scorn from richly characterized fellow deities to a confidence earned from centuries of island exile…Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile
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“Hews to the poetic timber of the epic, with a rich, imaginative style commensurate to the realm of immortal beings sparked with mortal sass.”
— Washington Post
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“This gorgeous novel…is a moving tale of a woman finding herself and struggling with family loyalties.”
— Real Simple
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“[A] lush, gold-lit new novel…From the perspective of Circe.”
— NPR
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“This lyrical novel deserves a second read, especially in the form of Perdita Weeks’ audio performance…Her performance makes Circe’s forced interiority a vibrant thing that roils with more life and imagination than any of the gods and nymphs whose worse behaviors never led to their own banishment.”
— Paste Magazine (audio review)
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“Explores what it means when a
woman stands alone to face her family and her gods in defense of who she is.”
— Signature
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“Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing twenty-first-century monsters.”
— Kirkus Review (starred review)
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“Deftly weaves episodes of war, treachery, monsters, gods, demigods, heroes, and mortals…[An] absorbing and atmospheric read.”
— School Library Journal (starred review)
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“A classic story of female empowerment…an uncompromising portrait of a superheroine who learns to wield divine power while coming to understand what it means to be mortal.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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“Captures a sorceress from a time not our own and makes her achingly real.”
— LibraryReads
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“Miller’s enthralling second novel may be about a goddess, but it has a lot to say about what it means to be a woman.”
— BookPage
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“Circe is above all the chronicle of an outsider woman who uses her power and wits to protect herself and the people she loves.”
— Shelf Awareness
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“Circe’s story receives new life when freed from the limiting view of the male gaze. For fans of adaptation, historical fiction, and strong female leads, Miller’s Circe is a must-read.”
— Booklist
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Winner of the 2019 Indie Choice Award Shortlisted for the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction Named one of the 'Best Books of 2018' by NPR, The Washington Post, Buzzfeed, People, Time, Amazon,Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, Newsweek, the A.V. Club, Christian Science Monitor, Southern Living,and Refinery 29.
—
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Circe,' [is] a bold
and subversive retelling of the goddess's story that manages to be both epic
and intimate in its scope, recasting the most infamous female figure from the
Odyssey as a hero in her own right.
— Alexandra Alter, New York Times
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One of
the most amazing qualities of this novel [is]: We know how everything here
turns out - we've known it for thousands of years - and yet in Miller's lush
reimagining, the story feels harrowing and unexpected. The feminist light she
shines on these events never distorts their original shape; it only illuminates
details we hadn't noticed before.
— Ron Charles, Washington Post
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[Miller]
gives
voice to Circe as a multifaceted and evolving character...'Circe' is very
pleasurable to read, combining lively versions of familiar tales and snippets
of other, related standards with a highly psychologized, redemptive and
ultimately exculpatory account of the protagonist herself.
— Claire Messud, New York Times Book Review
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The story of Circe's entanglement with Odysseus lasts far beyond the narrative of "The Odyssey," making for compelling material to revisit. But ultimately it's as a character that Circe stands apart....Through her elegant, psychologically acute prose, Miller gives us a rich female character who inhabits the spaces in between.
— Colleen Abel, Minneapolis Star Tribune
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Miller's lush,
gold-lit novel - told from the perspective of the witch whose name in Greek has
echoes of a hawk and a weaver's shuttle - paints another picture: of a fierce
goddess who, yes, turns men into pigs, but only because they deserve it.
— NPR.org
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so vivid, so layered, you could get lost
in it... Whether or not you think you like Greek Mythology, this is just great
storytelling. It feels cinematic.
— NPR's Here & Now
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Spellbinding..Miller
has created a daring feminist take on a classic narrative; although
the setting is a
mystical world of gods, monsters, and nymphs, the protagonist at its heart is
like any of
us.
— O Magazine
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Miller's spell builds slowly, but by the last page you'll be in awe. In
prose of dreamlike simplicity, she reimagines the myth of Circe.
— People
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Miller, with her academic bona fides and born instinct for storytelling, seamlessly grafts modern concepts of selfhood and independence to her mystical reveries of smoke and silver, nectar and bones.
— Entertainment Weekly
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This telling, in the
sorceress's own words, is not the version we think we know.
— New York Times 'T Magazine'
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Miller gives voice to a previously muted perspective in the classics, forging a great romance from the scraps left to us by the ancients....Circe is, instead, a romp, an airy delight, a novel to be gobbled greedily in a single sitting."—Aida Edemariam, Guardian
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In Madeline Miller's "Circe
— the gorgeous and gimlet-eyed follow-up to her Orange Prize-winning first novel, "The Song of Achilles
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—Laura Collins-Hughes, Boston Globe
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Ambitious in scope, Circe is above all the chronicle of an outsider woman who uses her power and wits to protect herself and the people she loves, ultimately looking within to define herself. Readers will savor the message of standing against a hostile world and forging a new way.
— Shelf Awareness
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A retelling of ancient Greek lore gives exhilarating voice to a witch...
[Circe is] a sly, petulant, and finally commanding voice that narrates the
entirety of Miller's dazzling second novel....Readers will relish following the
puzzle of this unpromising daughter of the sun god Helios and his wife, Perse,
who had negligible use for their child....Expect Miller's readership to mushroom
like one of Circe's spells. Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing
21st-century monsters.
— Kirkus, Starred Review
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An epic spanning thousands of years that's also a keep-you-up-all-night page turner.
— Ann Patchett, author of Commonwealth
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With lyric beauty of language and melancholy evocative of Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn", CIRCE asks all the big questions of existence while framing them in the life story of the famous goddess who had the magic of transformations. A veritable Who's Who of the gods of Olympus and the heroes of ancient Greece, Circe knows them all and we see them through her perceptive eyes. This is as close as you will ever come to entering the world of mythology as a participant. Stunning, touching, and unique.
— Margaret George, author of The Confessions of Young Nero
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Circe
bears its own transformative magic, a power enabled by Miller's keen eye for
beauty, adventure, and reinvention. Through the charms of a misfit heroine, the
world of gods becomes stunningly alive, and the world of our own humanity--its
questions, loves, and bonds--is illuminated. This book is an immense gift to
anyone who reads to find their own bravery and quest.
— Affinity Konar, author of Mischling
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Madeline Miller, master storyteller, conjures Circe glowing and alive - and makes the Gods, nymphs and heroes of ancient Greece walk forth in all their armored splendor. Richly detailed and written with such breathtaking command of story, you will be held enchanted. A breathtaking novel.
— Helen Simonson, author of The Summer Before the War and Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
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Circe is the utterly captivating, exquisitely written, story of an ordinary, and extraordinary, woman's life
— Eimear McBride, author of A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing
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Written with power and grace, this enchanting, startling, gripping story casts a spell as strong and magical as any created by the sorceress Circe.
— Mary Doria Russell, author of Epitaph
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—May-Lee Chai, Dallas News
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'Circe' is a
sentence-by-sentence miracle";—Michigan Daily
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