Book Blog #350: Circe by Madeline Miller

 

Title: Circe

Author: Madeline Miller

# of Pages: 407 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Fantasy

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe has neither the look nor the voice of divinity, and is scorned and rejected by her kin. Increasingly isolated, she turns to mortals for companionship, leading her to discover a power forbidden to the gods: witchcraft. When love drives Circe to cast a dark spell, wrathful Zeus banishes her to the remote island of Aiaia. There she learns to harness her occult craft, drawing strength from nature. But she will not always be alone; many are destined to pass through Circe's place of exile, entwining their fates with hers. The messenger god, Hermes. The craftsman, Daedalus. A ship bearing a golden fleece. And wily Odysseus, on his epic voyage home. There is danger for a solitary woman in this world, and Circe's independence draws the wrath of men and gods alike. To protect what she holds dear, Circe must decide whether she belongs with the deities she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

Review: I'm going to have high expectations for any book that has high ratings (4+ star average) and has won a Goodreads Choice award. However, I'm really struggling to understand the hype.

I can appreciate how Miller took a lesser known goddess from Greek mythology (Circe) and built out her story to highlight the roles she played in many famous Greek myths (think Odysseus and the Underworld, the Minotaur, the Golden Fleece). It's giving the same empowering-hidden-women-in-history vibes that I got from Hamilton (and is a common theme in many modern historical re-tellings). This concept, while not entirely original, was one of first popular Greek mythology re-telling I've seen since Percy Jackson.

However, this book is just okay. I had no idea who Circe when I started this book, and I had no idea where her story was going. Since she is immortal, there's some detachment from her narrative that isn't relatable to the reader. Her "life story" quite literally spans centuries, so there's no urgency since she has all the time in the world and more. The beginning half of the story really dragged because of the slice of life nature of it and is what caused me to take so long (almost 2 months) to get myself to finish reading it. 

Things pick up in the latter half, partially because there are more references to the recognizable Greek myths. It was a lot more fun to read when comparing how the original Greek myth compared to Miller's telling of it compared to the sludge that was Circe's character building (or lack thereof). 

You MUST read this book knowing that everything Miller is writing is in the framework of already written mythology. If Greek myths were written today, they'd get a lot of flack on their realism, character building, etc. A lot of the parts I didn't enjoy (e.g. a character's decision making is unrealistic/far fetched, events occur that are too convenient) are unfortunately part of the OG myths and have to be carried into this story as well. 

I can see how people who are really into Greek mythology might enjoy this book. I'm unfortunately not that type of person, and there wasn't enough original content to get a clear idea on whether Miller was particularly good at crafting a story. 

From what I've learned about Circe in this book, there's good reason why she is not famous - her story is not particularly interesting, and that's okay (and even part of the messaging of this book). But I think because of this, I don't think the book was particularly worth reading, and I question whether Circe was the story Miller should be retelling. 

I would recommend this only if you are already interested in Greek mythology/re-tellings.

Book Blog #349: Viewfinder by Jon M. Chu, Jeremy McCarter

 

Title: Viewfinder

Author: Jon M. Chu, Jeremy McCarter

# of Pages: 289 (hardback)

Genre: Non-fiction,  Autobiography

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Synopsis: Long before he directed Wicked, In The Heights, or the groundbreaking film Crazy Rich Asians, Jon M. Chu was a movie-obsessed first-generation Chinese American, helping at his parents’ Chinese restaurant in Silicon Valley and forever facing the cultural identity crisis endemic to children of immigrants. Growing up on the cutting edge of twenty-first-century technology gave Chu the tools he needed to make his mark at USC film school, and to be discovered by Steven Spielberg, but he soon found himself struggling to understand who he was. In this book, for the first time, Chu turns the lens on his own life and work, telling the universal story of questioning what it means when your dreams collide with your circumstances, and showing how it’s possible to succeed even when the world changes beyond all recognition. With striking candor and unrivaled insights, Chu offers a firsthand account of the collision of Silicon Valley and Hollywood—what it’s been like to watch his old world shatter and reshape his new one. Ultimately, Viewfinder is about reckoning with your own story, becoming your most creative self, and finding a path all your own.

Review: Jon M. Chu is a great filmmaker. I've some of he's biggest hits such as Crazy Rich Asians and Wicked. He's also not half-bad at speaking - I happened to see a clip from an interview (podcast?) where he talks about some behind-the-scene tidbits such as how his mom's words and Steven Spielberg impacted his career. 

In fact, those tidbits were actually the most interesting talking points of this book, his memoir. Already, Chu had these "spoilers" working against him, but it's not a dealbreaker for me. A similar situation happened with Jennette McCurdy's book, but it didn't stop me from being captivated. 

However, Chu should stick with his most familiar medium - film. I didn't need to read in the last 100 pages about his parent's lives describe to me as if it were a movie. While his parent's success story could actual stand alone as its own story, the way this section was written actually put me in a readers block, and this book ended up sitting untouched on a table for weeks. 

The rest of the story was not bad per se. Many readers likely don't know just how many movies Chu has worked on, so this was a pleasant surprise in the earlier parts of the book before getting his Crazy Rich Asians era. However, I couldn't help but feel like this book was premature - Chu is relatively young and likely has many more movies ahead of him. I couldn't help but think that maybe this should have stayed in the drafts until latter in his life.

Overall, I didn't find this book to be worth reading. It's great that Chu found a role model in Steve Jobs, but the first part of this book felt like a Steve Jobs fan boy's memoir. If you're interested in Chu's story, just watch his interviews.