Circe by Madeline Miller is a vivid retelling of the story of the witch-goddess from Homer’s The Odyssey. Circe was born to Helios, the powerful god of the sun, and Perse, a beautiful but cold and callous naiad, guardian of fountains and streams. Circe was always the outcast and “ugly duckling” of her family, looked down upon by her mother and younger siblings. That is, until her youngest brother Aeëtes was born, whom she took care of and he became her greatest companion. Aeëtes was extremely bright and knew of many things, and even taught Circe about pharmaka, magical herbs that grew from the blood of fallen gods. This information leads Circe to discover her special abilities and the wild world of witchcraft. 

She uses pharmaka to turn the mortal sailor, Glaucos, she had met and fallen in love with into a god, so they could be together. But when the mortal, Glaucos, turns into an arrogant and vain sea god and instead fancies a nymph named Syclla, Circe takes her powers too far. She unintentionally transforms Syclla into a hideous, six-headed monster, and crushed by her own guilty conscious, she confess what she had done to her father. The gods meet and decide her punishment is to be banished from the kingdom and exiled to an uninhabited island where she must remain forever. She finds her new home of Aiaia to be very peaceful and the perfect place to foster her witchcraft skills. Throughout her time on the island, she encounter many new visitors, and the rest of the book is about how those encounters unfold. 

While I overall enjoyed the book Circe by Madeline Miller, I must admit that it wasn’t my favorite. I had read Miller’s first book The Song of Achilles and loved it, but I feel like this one just didn’t resonate with me, and I wasn’t able to connect with the main character as much. The book is 385 pages, which is on the longer side, and though I wouldn’t mind the length if it was engaging the whole way through, I did find that the book somewhat drags on. Personally, I didn’t find that the length was necessary, and some of the characters and situations seemed to lack purpose. Something positive I will say about this book is that it is very well-written and I loved reading the connections to ancient Greek characters and stories. While it might not have been for me,  I have heard that many others did really like this book, so I would recommend it to others who want to give it a try!

Normal People by Sally Rooney is about a romance between two people on the surface, but it is much more than just a “romance novel”. The story begins with Connell, a fairly popular and well-liked boy at school, and Marianne, a social outcast by all means, beginning a secret romance unbeknownst to Connell’s high school friends, and Marianne’s lack thereof. Connell allows his self-consciousness to overtake him, and the downfall of their high school relationship lies in his paranoia that people would find out about them. Connell doesn’t treat Marianne the best because of this, and when Connell doesn’t ask Marianne to the dance and takes instead Rachel, the most popular girl in school, the two fizzle out on Marianne’s accord. In college, the two experience somewhat of a role reversal, where Connell is having trouble meeting people and is a bit lonely his first semester of college, while Marianne is nothing short of a social butterfly, seen as well-liked and charismatic with lots of friends who respect her and a boyfriend in college. When the two cross paths, it is like no time has passed since the last time they spoke, and they are quick to rekindle their friendship.A pattern occurs throughout the story of coming and going into each others lives, but no matter what the status of their relationship is, they always find their way back to one another somehow. 

Normal People is one of my favorite books, and while romance novels are not a part of my typical reads, I think this book is so much more than that. One quirk this book does have is there are no quotation marks for the dialouge, so it can make the book a little trickier to read. I’ve also heard that while some people are die-hard Normal People fans, others take a much stronger liking to Conversations with Friends, another popular novel by Sally Rooney. I’ve read both and would highly recommend either, so if this book isn’t your cup of tea, you might want to try out CWF. Overall, I love this book and think everyone should read it!

Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion is about actress Maria Wyeth recalling the events that led up to her being admitted to a psychiatric facility. She introduces herself through her childhood growing up in the nearly deserted town of Silver Wells, Nevada. Her entrepreneurial father Harry’s gambling problem had landed them in Silver Wells and her mother Francine was an actress as well living with serious depression. Maria leaves Silver Wells to pursue an acting career and eventually marries Carter Lang, a director who gave Maria minor roles in his films. Their marriage ends up having insurmountable struggles, and after their separation, Maria spends her days taking aimlessly long drives down the California highways to avoid facing her grim reality. Maria begins to lead herself down a harmful path, having an affair with a married friend Les Goodman and ending up getting pregnant. Carter, who had previously wanted to work things out with Maria, urges her to seek an abortion and threatens to take away their daughter Kate if she doesn’t. Maria is left reeling after her abortion and distracts herself from her unraveling mental state by attending grand Hollywood parties. Carter, wary of Maria’s destructive new habits, invites Maria to stay with him and their friends in his filming location in the desert, but while you may be able to take the girl out of Hollywood, Maria proves that you can’t take the Hollywood out of the girl. Maria continues on her downward, self-sabotaging partying spiral until the night when the tragic event that happens is revealed that is the catalyst to Maria’s psychiatric hospital stay.

Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion is a clever book about the life of a mentally struggling (not-so-famous) actress in Hollywood in the late 1960s. While I really wanted to enjoy it, this book did not appeal to me as much as my other reads. I had heard great things about it, which inspired me to pick up the book, yet I did not find the book to be nearly as engaging or captivating as others had reviewed. Still, Didion perfectly captures the feelings of isolation and alienation Maria bears as she distracts herself from her depression with inauthentic friendships, mind-numbing substances, and late-night soirees. It was a quick read and I would recommend this book those who are interested in the dark side of the old Hollywood film scene, I just personally didn’t resonate with it as much as I had hoped. 

The Novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong is a letter from the narrator, Little Dog, to his immigrant mother, Rose. His mother cannot read, as her formal education was cut short at age seven due to the Vietnam War, so he knows his mother will not be able to understand the letter. Still, he writes it anyway, not as a means of communication, but as a way to process his memories and emotions following a tragic loss. His family moved from Vietnam to escape the war when he was only two years old, and his mother and grandmother, whom he lives with in a lower-class neighborhood in Hartford CT, both carry great trauma from the war. Growing up, Little Dog suffers as his well-meaning but mentally ill mother hits him at home and his classmates bully him at school.

At the age of fourteen, Little Dog gets a job working on a tobacco farm and meets Trevor, a fellow worker and grandson of Buford, the owner of the farm. Little Dog becomes very close with Trevor and finds out he is not as privileged as he once thought, discovering that he works at the farm to get away from his drunken father and has a serious drug problem. He and Trevor begin a tumultuous relationship, serving for him as both a source of comfort and agonizing heartbreak. While Little Dog learns a lot about himself and of life through his relationship with Trevor, this book’s paramount theme is the importance of language. Little Dog comes to realize the weight (and burden) he carries when he translates for his mother and grandmother. He is responsible for translating America to them, and most importantly translating them to America, making his immigrant family visible to a foreign country.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong is a beautifully written book. The author Vuong is mainly a poet, and it is clear to see by his skillfully crafted prose and attention to detail. The narration of Little Dog features a sense of raw honesty, pain, and tenderness, making his character easy to empathize with. One criticism I have is that I do feel like the novel is somewhat confusing and difficult to understand at times. Some parts I’d even say were clear as mud. I had an overall positive experience with the book, but I can’t give quite the raving review as I did for the other books I’ve blogged about. I also think that this book will not be everyone’s cup of tea, as the writing style is quite unique and evidently reflects the author’s poetry background in a way that some could find difficult to read. However, if you’re interested in a meaningful novel about family connections with extremely thoughtful and precise language, then this is the book for you.