Oh my gosh. Cried more reading that book than I have in a while. It is in theory a romance, a heart wrenching one, but this book is SO MUCH MORE than that!!! I equate to normal people in terms of its inspection of complex ppl and relationships, and its uniqueness in style. The chapters written in 2nd person??? so cool and almost intrusive feeling. The jump from part one to two was jarring and unexpected but so GOOD. The way our narrator narrates as if her personality, what makes her her comes second to the people around her and the story she is telling I mean Wow. And all the emotions with her being a mother and etc in the second half? The way it investigates on tjme and life/death and how to spend this time we have been given here on earth I mean I will truly take the questions and lessons from this book with me forward in life. Also the ending broke me AHHH WTF!!!! loved every second but also that was torture but the best kind. I hope they make a show like they did for normal ppl! One of the best romances I’ve read this year and maybe ever

To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as dead as a baby, the world itself is a bad dream.” kinda sums up the book. great introspection on mental illness, how stifling and hopeless it feels, and how the world keeps spinning.

what this book lacked in plot it made up for in originality and introspection. while the ending was a little lost on me, (im willing to concede I might have just not understood it), and the plot was flimsy, I really liked this. It is definitely unlike anything I have ever read. To me this book shone when Cyrus would go on long ramblings in his mind, or dream interactions between family members and etc. I loved the exploration of the importance of death weighed against the importance of life, and how the meaning of both matters to each person individually and society adds/takes away that meaning. It was really topical, and unique, and cool. Also, I loved unraveling and understanding the relationships between Cyrus and the other characters we got a POV from. Overall, so original, but slightly vague. I really liked!

Underwhelmed for sure. Confusing/some what hypocritical at times (like when we find out she’s shared a bed with iphis since when??? Or random changes that don’t add up like that) the style was awkwardly contemporary, though overall it was well written. As a reader i felt like brisies was relaying events to us, not living them with us. It made it hard to connect with her as a reader. Her character outside of just her circumstance felt underdeveloped. Also, I felt it was trying to hard to be feminist, and coming off slightly superficial. Instead of just showing us the atrocities of women at the war camp, what is is saying about them? To me? It seems like nothing. Some of the lines just felt too …. Cringey? Obvious? For a book that’s supposed to be about a woman’s perspective of an age old tale, I was annoyed with how many chapters were in Achilles or Patroclus point of view (nearly half the book!!) - they felt very one dimensional in their POVS and didn’t make sense for the story. For some reason the women themselves (the reason I picked up this book) felt underdeveloped and unexplored! Also, it was hard to connect to her relationships with other characters, it felt like she was just TELLING us she was close with iphis or had grown to love Patroclus, instead of showing the reader. There was some shining moments and deep cutting scenes and lines though- at times I was like WOW. Like “silence becomes a woman”? FIRE. Also the relationship (if u can call it that) between Achilles and briseis was mostly well done I thought. but Idk. Very disappointed had high hopes for this.

probably the best thriller I’ve read this year!! Expertly written, prose and commentary is so well done. Love that it is set in the 70s, the setting of self reliance/ the woods is almost a character in itself, it really adds to the story. The switching of perspectives was a nice touch. I was really invested from the get go, and simultaneously had lots of running theories about what happened and also so very lost in the swarm of all that is happening that I had no guesses at all. Kept me guessing till the end!! One critique would be often it felt like TOO much info at once, sometimes got a little lost , but maybe in a way that’s the point- the disorientation of pan, and the woods. One of my favs of the year !!