Lies We Sing to the Sea

 

Lies We Sing to the Sea
By Sarah Underwood
HarperTeen, 2023. 420 pages. Young Adult Fantasy 

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.

A small part of an old myth retold through a feminist lens that gives voices to the previously silent participants. Instead of powerful gods and angry men the entire story is fueled by the desires and actions of the female characters. I felt particularly synchronized with the characters' emotions as together we dreaded the inevitable outcomes of the finale and wished instead to stay in the soft comforting moments forever. Overall, a cathartic, heart-wrenching experience that I do not regret at all.

 

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In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child -- not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power -- the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.
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