This retelling of Penelope and her slave Melantho in the Odyssey is so... mid. I have never read the Odyssey and know that many other reviews swing on the hate and love pendulums, especially on the topic of Hewlett's view of the myth and retelling of it. I'm just firmly in the middle. It's fine. Really not the best, but certainly there could be worse books.

The amount of actual romance between the two women is minimal and especially the warped perception of time. The first part has a few time skips, but they are managed and paced out well. The second part felt weirdly puttering, even with such large swaths of time skips.

The language that Hewlett is employing is weak, banking on repetitive similes and flippant characterization. Many characters are one note, both men and women. Many male characters especially, which I both appreciated and detested. Some character felt to truly embody the entitlement and savageness that lies within men. But at the same time... It felt like rudimentary white feminism being explained to the reader. Even with discussions of the difference between Penelope and her slave handmaidens, the book almost takes this tone that Penelope truly is as a trapped as her slaves. We briefly hold discussions and Melantho's resentments towards it, and yet multiple secondary female characters assure her it is not something to be resentful of and hold against Penelope. Or at least, that's how I felt it was being portrayed. I have mixed feelings on the way the entire master/slave is represented. It has this huge gap of intersection that while I understand does not wholly fall under Hewlett's choice of myth, I do think she could've tried a good deal more. Shown even more nuance. I don't hate what Hewlett was trying to do or fully how she excuted it, but at about halfway through I was extremely ready to be done with this book.

Also Rosie Hewlett, trust your readers more. Stop over explaining and start playing with your language. The more you stretch a word like love, especially in ancient greek definitions, the more your reader will lean in than out.

All to say, this isn't a bad book. I think for a myth and especially white feminist retelling, it's fine. When I first started reading this book, I was fully leaning in. I was salivating at the candor of Hewlett's prose and the brutality of her world. But then, by part 2, I realized she was just spinning in circles. Conversations and character relationships felt so repetitive and unsure of how to land outside of awkward steps. I was no longer being swept away 😮‍💨 Overall, nothing special and not something I loathe either. There are some banger lines, but alas! At least it was gayh