The Song of Achilles - a review

or alternatively titled: This Book Broke Me You Should Totally Read It.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. This book is about the epic (love) story between Achilles and Patroclus in ancient Greece, in a time of heroes. The book is told from Patroclus' point of view, starting when he was a young boy. He and Achilles meet, become friends and grow up together, their bond deepening as they get older. Then comes news that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, and Achilles has to go to war in Troy, and Patroclus goes with him. This is all I'm going to write about the plot, and is basically what it says on the back of the book. It's not all there is, of course, but I want to leave some things as surprise.

(And when I say (love) story, I really mean love story.)

I loved this. I couldn't stop reading once I started, and ended up reading the whole book within 12 hours. Finished at 3 am (and felt like crying again half an hour later) but it was so worth it. I wanted to read it again the next day, at least the best parts, but I think I have to wait a little before reading it again.

The writing was lovely, and worked really well especially when Patroclus was a young boy or a teenager. It wasn't as good with him being an adult, but didn't take anything from the story, it was just something that I noticed. More like the writing style, and kind of Patroclus' thoughts, stayed the same, even when he was supposed to be older. The plot was wonderful and interesting, and even though it was partly about a war, it had more than just descriptions of fights.

I picked this up because I had seen a lot of people love this on the internet, and was interested. And it did not disappoint. It was captivating, wonderful, lovely and hot. And I mean the sexy kind of hot. Like, damn. You don't really need any knowledge of Greek mythology if you want to read it. I don't know much, and I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's a good story without the knowledge of gods and goddesses, the Trojan war and other things, and I think it might even be better if you don't know too much. That way you can enjoy the book as it is, a version of the story.

I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars and moved it to my favourites shelf immediately. Because it was that good.