THE BEST LOVE STORIES ARE TRAGEDIES
The Song of Achilles is a myth retelling through the eyes of Patroclus. He meets Achilles when he’s ten years old and exiled to his father’s kingdom, and the boys form a friendship, which then develops into a lifelong secret relationship. Achilles is the son of a mortal king and a sea nymph goddess and is prophesized to be the strongest warrior. The book spans almost two decades of their lives.
To me, there’s little more I love than childhood friends to lovers, which this is. I didn’t much care about the thousand Greek names or all the myths included in this book – I skimmed some of them – but if you like mythology, this is going to be a great book for you. I just wasn’t particularly interested in that part, and since I didn’t know the details of Achilles’ myth, the ending completely overwhelmed me.
Basically, the romance part is done really well. I got attached to the characters and really rooted for them, except the part where the relationship was a bit one-sided. You’ll see what I mean when you read it – you’ll feel the love, but you’ll also see what it can do to young people. I would have loved to see their relationship mature. I loved Patroclus truly and deeply, and the book is told through his point of view, which was a really good decision on the author’s part. There were a lot of difficult parts, especially after the middle, when the war began. I did not enjoy Achilles’ character arc, but he was very young and he was put under a lot of pressure. To me, Patroclus was stronger and truer the whole time. He pretty much stole my heart from the start and kept it until the very last paragraph.
And listen, I cried a lot at the end of this book. For the last 10% of the book, I was a bawling mess. It was so sad, I wished I could rewrite the ending and give them a better one, but I couldn’t, so I spent some time crying over it instead. It’s a tribute to the author’s ability to develop the romance between the two characters and to develop so many relationships within the plot as well. I felt all of those, and since I prefer emotionally heavy stories, this book did it for me. I loved it.
The writing was great, the romance was great – as good as a Greek tragedy can be – the characters were real, the ending was devastating… so I give this 5 stars.
If you want to read a queer Greek tragedy/love story, this is your book.
Reviewed by Violeta Nedkova
