Ratings13
Average rating3.7
A legendary YA debut. This dazzling sapphic fantasy inspired by Greek mythology will captivate fans of Circe and The Song of Achilles.
Each spring, Ithaca condemns twelve maidens to the noose. This is the price vengeful Poseidon demands for the lives of Queen Penelope’s twelve maids, hanged and cast into the depths centuries ago.
But when that fate comes for Leto, death is not what she thought it would be. Instead, she wakes on a mysterious island and meets a girl with green eyes and the power to command the sea. A girl named Melantho, who says one more death can stop a thousand.
The prince of Ithaca must die—or the tides of fate will drown them all.
Sarah Underwood weaves an epic tapestry of lies, love, and tragedy, perfect for fans of Madeline Miller, Alexandra Bracken, and Renée Ahdieh.
Reviews with the most likes.
i really enjoyed this book, i loved the three main characters and while the ending was sad it was also very beautiful and felt like the right way to end this story...
also i just want to address everyone who gave this book a bad rating on this website before it was even released, just because of one interview where the author said she had not read the entire odyssey: guess what, it doesn't matter, you don't need to know the entire epos for this story. actually, you don't need to know it at all. i think it's enjoyable either way. also please do not come along with cultural appropriation or whatever, this is not applicable here at all.
i sincerely wish you would just read this book with an open mind without being so set on hating it from the beginning and without nitpicking the author's every word, misinterpreting her on purpose and writing hateful reviews. it is an awful pile-on here on goodreads and i absolutely hate that it's targeted at the one more recent sapphic story set in ancient greece that we got during this whole hype around ancient greece in literature. if the marketing tried to go for the whole “odyssey” retelling schtick then this is NOT the author's fault, publishers love doing that kind of misleading marketing all the time. just read the book or don't.
at heart this is a lovely sapphic story filled with a lot of love and compassion and i do recommend it.
It's a good book loosely based on events in The Odyssey, but takes place over a hundred years after The Odyssey and is not an Odyssey retelling. If the author had not done that interview I don't think it would have been obvious that she's never finished reading the Odyssey. Despite the numerous weird things the author said in that interview, the book is pretty good for a debut novel but doesn't really stand out against any other Greek myth based novel.
This was a very good book that speaks to loss and love in a way that I think everyone can experience. The understanding that in a moment of grief, pain, and injustice what your heart may seek will not bring you the relief that you seek, but can instead inflict your pain on so many others was very well illustrated. Parts of this book were a bit slower, and other sections moved very quickly. Overall I would recommend it!