Wrath Goddess Sing
by Maya Deane
Published June 7, 2022
★★★☆☆
In this reimagining of Trojan War myth, Achilles is a woman battling with her identity, living in a body that does not feel her own. She refuses to fight as a man, and when Odysseus comes to claim her as prince, she is reluctant to join the campaign against Troy. Athena blesses her and transforms her body, granting her a lifetime of hopes and wishes. Taking on the mantle of vicious warrior, Achilles fights against formidable forced amid the gods, forges kinship with her comrades, and vanquishing the manipulative Helen of Troy in a fight to the death.
I have had a lifetime love of Greek mythology and legend, which led to my study of the subject in university. I devour the stories and re-imaginings that have hit mainstream publishing, and I'm really finding the push to highlight the feminine component of these myths refreshing.
Maya does a really good job of highlighting the small parts of Achilles' mythos. In stories, it is said that Achilles hid as a woman on Skyros - taking some creative liberty, the author developed this from a machination for hiding identity to letting it be the start of where Achilles' identity flowers into full trans representation.
Sexuality in Ancient Greece was fluid. After all, the Greeks are the ones who developed the mythos of hermaphrodites, the concept of pederasty (aka boy love) most famously depicted by Zeus and Ganymede, and the belief that the word lesbian was derived by the actions and existence of women-love on the island of Lesbos. Even in modern times, Greece has been liberal on their stance for same-sex relationships and activities, having legalized these acts since 1951.
For the most part, the story was rooted heavily in the events of the Trojan War. The abduction of Helen of Sparta, wife of Menelaus. The arrival of the Greeks on the shores of modern-day Turkey. The intense rivalry between Hector and Achilles, and Hector's subsequent defeat and humiliation. The involvement of the Amazons.
There are a lot of freedoms taken with the text, and at times the blending of stories and peoples in the Trojan mythos. As a person who studied this, some I could see as being a convincing reasoning (ie Achilles' existence on Skyros) and others kind of rubbed me the wrong way. The biggest issue I had was the fusing of Andromache, wife of Hector, and Andromache, a lesser known Amazon. The author decided to emphasize the close friendship between Achilles and Patroclus, instead of highlighting the rumoured homosexual relationship they had. Other characters sexual identities were swapped (Briseis and Deidamia), and some relationships (Achilles and Agamemnon) were fabricated based on the author's portrayal of Achilles as a woman made flesh.
The author was very good at drawing parallels between the gods and goddesses of other beliefs. For example, Aphrodite is the common Greek goddess of love, but she is Hathor in the Egyptian pantheon, Astarte in the Canaanite pantheon, and Ishtar in the Babylonian pantheon. There were times where I felt like the equivalencies were used excessively, with it being mentioned each time a deity took to the page. This was similar to the practice of outlining the parties in specific scenes, which caused it to come across in a similar biblical fashion as the way lineage is portrayed in the Old Testament of the bible.
Otherwise, it was fairly easy to follow the premise of the story. There were times when sentence structure was fractured, leading to long descriptions of events and people. Some factual information was stretched - such as Achilles' horse becoming seasick and vomiting, despite the fact that horses do not have the ability to vomit.
This is a great liberal depiction and view of the events of the Trojan War and how the culture of Greece impacted those that were less willing to be involved. Achilles, both in myth and in this book, was hesitant to join the Trojan War, but it was prophesized to Odysseus that they would factor into the success of the Greeks on the battlefield - even upon his demise.
Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for the chance to read this book, and to the author for bringing her own truth to the pages. This would be a good read for those that enjoy mythology (Greek or otherwise), Song of Achilles, and the bold representation of trans stories in literature - and why not join in at thumbing your nose at social convention? It's time to celebrate diverse stories.
Get your copy of Wrath Goddess Sing today!
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