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A review by tyriek
The Voyage Home by Pat Barker
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
2.0
"To call this book blunt and unsubtle would be an understatement. These characters aren’t interesting, flawed people; they’re twitter posts. After the magnificently written, PTSD-suffering Achilles from the first book, I was so bored by the PTSD-suffering Agamemnon. He drinks heavily, relies on narcotics to sleep, and sees his dead daughter in the shadows. Who cares about his suffering? I don’t. "
" Ritsa and Clytemnestra essentially share the same voice, despite one of them being the queen. Clytemnestra should be seething with fury, yet she comes across as resigned and bored; and somehow jealous. The dialogues are filled with awkward exchanges. Anachronistic slang that hadn’t bothered me before felt jarring here. I found the book tedious, lacking in intelligence or novelty—nothing about it felt fresh or insightful. I kept waiting for a murder to finally happen, hoping it would jolt the story into higher gears fitting for the high drama of the myth, yet it was endlessly delayed and when it finally happened, the story just petered out."
A feminist retelling that seems to just hate on the main character who was historically abused and misrepresented.
" Ritsa and Clytemnestra essentially share the same voice, despite one of them being the queen. Clytemnestra should be seething with fury, yet she comes across as resigned and bored; and somehow jealous. The dialogues are filled with awkward exchanges. Anachronistic slang that hadn’t bothered me before felt jarring here. I found the book tedious, lacking in intelligence or novelty—nothing about it felt fresh or insightful. I kept waiting for a murder to finally happen, hoping it would jolt the story into higher gears fitting for the high drama of the myth, yet it was endlessly delayed and when it finally happened, the story just petered out."
A feminist retelling that seems to just hate on the main character who was historically abused and misrepresented.