The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.

Title: The Song of Achilles
Author: Madeline Miller
Genre: Romance, War
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication Date: 20th September 2011
Goodreads Summary: Greece in the age of Heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the kingdom of Phthia. Here he is nobody, just another unwanted boy living in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles.

Achilles, 'best of all the Greeks', is everything Patroclus is not — strong, beautiful, the child of a goddess — and by all rights their paths should never cross. Yet one day, Achilles takes the shamed prince under his wing and soon their tentative companionship gives way to a steadfast friendship. As they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms into something far deeper — despite the displeasure of Achilles's mother Thetis, a cruel and deathly pale sea goddess with a hatred of mortals.

Fate is never far from the heels of Achilles. When word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, the men of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows Achilles into war, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they have learned, everything they hold dear. And that, before he is ready, he will be forced to surrender his friend to the hands of Fate.

Profoundly moving and breathtakingly original, this rendering of the epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace and glory, immortal fame and the human heart.

{ Review }

The Song of Achilles is centered on two main characters: Patroclus and Achilles. Patroclus, a price, is exhiled from his home lands at a young age after accidentally killing a boy. He is fostered by Peleus, father of Achilles, and although Patroclus is at first ignored by Achilles and all the other boys fostered by Peleus, he catches the attention of Achilles and the two become great friends. The two, although a strange match (Patroclus is weak and skinny whilst Achilles is a strong and handsome demi-God), become almost inseparable and Achilles names Patroclus his companion (basically his right-hand man). The pair develop an interesting relationship (winkwink) and Patroclus follows Achilles wherever he goes. There is a prophecy which says that Achilles will be the greatest warrior of his time which has great significance throughout the story. The story spans over many, many years and the beautiful relationship between Patroclus and Achilles develops despite the other more turbulent plot lines in the novel.

I absolutely loved this book. I am a big fan of Greek mythology and books based on classical references and both of which are the core to this novel. This book surprised me a lot as the story unfolded with many different and unique plot strands weaving into each other and the story was about so much more than I thought it would be. I'm not a classics student therefore I can't say whether or not the classical references were exactly accurate, but the author doesn't alter what we already know about these mythological characters too much. The relationship between Patroclus and Achilles is slightly ambiguous and Madeline Miller's spin on it makes a fascinating story.

The relationship between Patroclus and Achilles is absolutely beautiful. I didn't think that I would be that great a fan of it (I'm not homophobic, just didn't think that it would work), but the love story between the two Greeks was simply mesmerising. Their relationship isn't sappy in any way, it's a relationship borne out of friendship that is really rather subtle and that's what makes it so beautiful. The love story is one of the biggest themes in the story, though it's more of an undercurrent rather than a piece of dramatic action. There were a couple of times when I doubted one of the pair's sincerity, but for the most part, Achilles and Patroclus had a deeply moving and heartbreaking relationship.

The plot of this novel has so many twists and turns that I had absolutely no idea what to expect. A lot of major themes are introduced in the first parts but aren't explored or don't come about until the second half so you feel this great sense of anticipation as you're waiting for events to unfold. That said, this book wasn't preditable in the slightest. Although there were a few major events that you could see coming, it's the minor details that you haven't even thought about that creep up and surprise you. Even if you think you know the story of Achilles already you won't be able to predict some of the twists that happen in this book.

All in all this is a poignant love story, I'd even go so far as to call it a a tragedy, as well as a hero's battle for glory. This book is written in such a beautiful way with such a brilliant and devastating story that you can't help but fall in love with the world the world and characters that Madeline Miller has created. I would thoroughly recommend this to all fans of mythology adaptations and even those who aren't! This is a must read tale.

My Ex From Hell by Tellulah Darling. 

Title: My Ex From Hell. (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy #1)
Author: Tellulah Darling
Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Greek Mythology,
Publisher: Te Da Media
Publication Date: April 1st 2013
Goodreads Summary: Sixteen-year-old Sophie Bloom wishes she’d been taught the following:

a) Bad boy’s presence (TrOuBlE) + teen girl’s brain (DraMa) = TrAuMa (Highly unstable and very volatile.)
b) The Genus Greekulum Godissimus is notable for three traits: 1) awesome abilities, 2) grudges, and 3) hook-ups, break-ups, and in-fighting that puts cable to shame.

Prior to the Halloween dance, Sophie figures her worst problems involve adolescent theatrics, bitchy yoga girls, and being on probation at her boarding school for mouthy behaviour. Then she meets bad boy Kai and gets the kiss that rocks her world.

Literally.

This breath stealing lip lock reawakens Sophie’s true identity; Persephone, Goddess of Spring. She’s key to saving humanity in the war between the Underworld and Olympus, target numero uno of Hades and Zeus, and totally screwed.

Plus there’s also the little issue that Sophie’s last memory as Persephone was just before someone tried to murder her.

Big picture: master her powers, get her memories back, defeat Persephone’s would be assassin, and save the world. Also, sneak into the Underworld to retrieve stolen property, battle the minions of Hades and Zeus, outwit psycho nymphs, slay a dragon, rescue a classmate, keep from getting her butt expelled from the one place designed to keep her safe …

… and stop kissing Kai, Prince of the Underworld.

My Ex From Hell is a romantic comedy/Greek mythology smackdown. Romeo and Juliet had it easy.

{ Review }

Wah. I forgot to save my post on the blogger app so I'm writing this for the second time :(

So I recently downloaded a whole heap of books and I had absolutely no intention of reading them until my exams were over, but curiosity got the better of me and I started looking their reviews up on Goodreads. Most of them sounded alright, but when I got to 'My Ex From Hell', I found two very, very convincing reviews (if I don't manage to convince you to read this book then go check theirs out because they most certainly will) and an overall rating of 4.6 which is pretty darn high. I don't think I've ever read the synopsis of a book and felt so excited. I think the book summary does a really good job of capturing Sophie's (the protagonist) personality and gives you a great insight into the book, so I won't bother giving you any more details, I'll leave you to find them out for yourselves!

I absolutely love books that have anything to do with Greek mythology and this book was no exception. Actually, I liked this book a lot more than other mythology books because it didn't seem to stray too far away from the original stories and there weren't too many made up characters. By that, I mean that the families ties were mostly correct and the story was written in such a way that you could believe that this really was based on an ancient myth. Of course, the character Kai (or Kyrillos), son of Hades, was a made up character but he's sounds like a seriously hot God so who cares. I actually learnt quite a lot about Greek mythology from this book, like who's related to who, who's the God of what and what everyone's job is, so you could even class this as a semi-educational read. ;)

Although the romance plays a fairly substantial part in this book, it isn't really the main focus, which allows the characters of Hannah and Theo, Sophie's best friends, to have more of an active role. I absolutely loved Hannah, she just sounded like such an awesome person and right now I'm not sure which emotion is stronger: the desire to be best friends with her, or the desire to be her.

I didn't like the character Bethany, Queen-B and mean girl, though I suppose that's the point. However, what I did like, was the way that she was written. I felt like she was quite an authentic b****, who wasn't totally OTT, which made me kinda fear and hate her at the same time. I don't usually have much of an opinion on these sorts of characters in books, because they're usually just sort of there, but Bethany has a presence that really gets under your skin.


I actually found Kai's character a little confusing. I mean, he's hot. Like super hot. Like super-God-hot. But his character wasn't featured as much as I would've liked. It's also pretty hard to figure out what his intentions are, especially at the climax of the book but I suppose we'll find that out later. In the meantime you can tide yourself over with brain images of a sexy, bad-ass, flirty, player of a God (who's also an amazing kisser).

Something else that was a little hard to get my head around was the idea of Persephone and Sophie as two separate people, and yet the same person? (It makes sense when you read it). Although Persephone's dying soul was moved into Sophie's body, they're two separate people. Well actually it's more like Sophie is her own person but ever since her memories were re-awakened  bits of Persephone have started to filter through. I don't think I'm making much sense right now, but you'll understand it when you read it and it's all pretty cool once you figure out what the heck is going on. The entire book is written from the point of view of Sophie and it's just so easy to like her. She's funny and brave and it feels like a real person is telling you the story (if that makes sense). Lots of YA authors are good at portraying the teenage mind but very few of them get it spot on. Well, Tellulah Darling has. I alternated between laughing, feeling some serious butterflies and rolling around in a ball in frustration. This is story is just everything that you could possibly want from a YA book and I highly recommend it!

This book ended on such a good cliffhanger, I am now desperate to read the rest of this series! I'm also loving the look of Tellulah Darling's other book: 'Sam Cruz's Infallible Guide to Getting Girls' which looks exactly like my kind of book!

P.S. I tried to turn my fan girl off whilst writing this review, when really all I wanted to say was shgkfghksdfhgksdjfhgksdfjhbksdfjhksdjfhgksdjhgkjsdfgkjdshfgkjhOMGskhgkadgfkdshfgkdshfgkdhsfgkjh.

Thanks to Te Da Media for this ARC ^^