I absolutely loved this woman-cdentred take on Greek mythology and the Trojan war. Haynes gathers up the fragments of women’s stories from a variety of different sources and tells the story of the war and its aftermath in the voices of the many women named in these myths, from queens to common women to goddesses. The scenes and voices range from the heartbreaking to the hilarious — Penelope’s unsent letters to the absent Odysseus are just the funniest, wryest things I’ve read in a long time — and, cumulatively, this woman’s saga of an ancient legendary war ends up reminding us not only of how different stories sound when told by women, but also of the tremendous costs of war that are still being exacted in conflicts thousands of years after the mythical fall of Troy.
Compulsive Overreader 