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.
Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.
But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love. 

Madeline Meyer can we please get more books about Olympus’s most despised women who are actually awesome?

Circe is the goddess of magic and represents one of the first sorcerers in Greek mythology. She is a daughter of Helios and nymph Perse. She’s been mocked off and put aside from her entire childhood, thought to be nothing more than just a silly ugly girl with no powers. But, when she reveals her power of witchcraft, Zeus orders for her to be banished on a lonely island called Aiaia and spend her eternity there.

Circe was always a black sheep in the family, a despised exile who was used for punishing her father for his family’s crimes. Her change over her long centuries has been a drastic and painful journey, but the way she rose from the depths of loneliness and despair was truly inspiring and straight-up amazing. This book is about strength – that kind of strength that we all have somewhere deep inside and it needs to be discovered and brought to use. The problem about discovering it is that it usually happens as a result of something horrible – a trauma or abuse, or some other way of taking an individual so far from their comfort zone that they have to find themselves all over again. Circe has always had a dose of that cruelty and ruthlessness in herself, but one of the best moments in the book was when she finally decided to put her power to use. I could actually feel how the moment of terrible abuse by the sailors has changed her, something snapped in her and she decided she will never be screwed with again. She was meant to be free, and she was meant to be powerful, the question was only when she will muster the strength to use her power to get what she deserves.

This book was an amazing character novel, mostly because of Circe’s change and journey, but also because it was followed by a bunch of amazingly developed characters. For each and every character, whether it was just a side character or a major one, there was a fair amount of traits and explanations why was that character the way he was. I really understood the motives and actions of every character and all their interactions, no matter how complex, were easy to follow due to Meyer’s amazing writing and interpretation of Greek mythology.

I genuinely enjoyed her writing style and the way she shaped this book, turning Circe from Greek’s vicious villain into a complex and powerful woman, but the lack of the plot is something that no amount of amazing development can make up for. I love a good character-oriented book, but Circe was written as a sort of biography, with very few interesting scenes and even less plot twists. I can almost say it was predictable, too long for the message author wanted to say, and it would be so much more enjoyable if it was shortened and spiced up with some better-developed romance or something likewise.