I'm obsessed with the Epic musical which has revived my interest in Greek retellings. I enjoyed this while reading it - Casati does a good job reimagining the turbulent and ruthless world of ancient Greece. I was struck by how much arbitrary cruelty and violence happened in this time, and every character is traumatized and violent, it's just a matter of how much. Women were truly nothing but property. I couldn't stop reading coz I wanted to know what was going to happen next (I only have a very general idea of Clytemnestra's story).

However, I don't know if these retellings are just not for me or if authors aren't able to reimagine them well. I had the same issue as with Circe: characters had no personality at all - they're all paper thin, two dimensional characters (sorry, but Clytemnestra has no personality other than being girlboss and female rage/trauma).

The other thing that bothered me was that the characters' motivations and behavior made zero sense. Yes, Casati had to stick to the myths. But her characterization of them contradicted how they behaved.

For example, as another reviewer stated, why did Penelope decide to pretend Odysseus didn't sacrifice her niece? (Again, Odysseus and Penelope happen to be the most intriguing characters in the story LOL). Why did Electra just side with her father so much? Why did Castor and Polydeuces decide to marry those two women?

I am full of question marks. Another minor thing that irritated me was why did Polydeuces have an incestuous love for his sister, Helen? He didn't need to have incestuous feelings and the story would have worked fine.