To say The Song of Achilles is a master’s work is an understatement. I got a copy somewhere, can’t really remember where, so I had no idea what I was in for in the reading of it. I was consumed by the writing and the story. Madeline Miller nailed it

I know nothing about the ancient Greeks, even less about their gods. Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Achilles, none of them. I suspect I might not have opened it, if I’d had an inking about what what inside. Ignorance can sometimes yield reward; it did for me with this book.

When young Patroclus kills another boy, he is disowned by his royal family and sent away to a life of servitude without status. He meets Achilles and the two become lovers, accepted only because Achilles is a prince whose mother was a goddess.

Their arduous, loving, bloody, cruel lives lead them smack into the Trojan war and author Madeline Miller’s deft telling makes you live right there with them. The Song of Achilles is a masterful book. Masterful.