It was very interesting learning about some characters I’d heard of but didn’t know much about — I would say it’s incredibly useful to have everything neatly in one book, but because of that, it is a long read.

That said, it is easy to read and some parts of prose are clearly very inspired by Ancient Greek poetic voice (but the writing is, at the same time, quite clunky in parts — almost like it reads in translation.

If you want a general overview of Greek mythology but like with humor and wit and joviality while still focusing on the actual myths, lol THIS IS NOT THE BOOK. Looking down from Olympus, Aphrodite smiled to herself, then shrugged, and started to comb out her long, shining hair.

And what a fitting ending you gave us with the trial of Orestes and the reasoning of Penelope – am I expected to be a human version of Odysseus’ loyal dog Argos? Penelope of course ends the book and we get to see her jealousy and exhaustion dealing with Odysseus being gone and having to deal with the suitors who would marry her. I sort of wish I’d come across this when I was younger — this is a great ‘introduction’ to Greek myth without having to scour and pull together lots of disparate sources. They are stories of love and desire, adventure and magic, destructive gods, helpless humans, fantastical creatures and resourceful witches.And in these stories, we do not see heroes and gods but patriarchs, rapists, cheats, braggarts and betrayers. To present the women of this world through their hard work - the toil of the loom should not be dismissed as minimal, this is not modern day chilled crafting - and through the stories they tell in the weaving, the space they create whilst doing so and the viewpoints and private experiences they hint at, the voice they create through this work. It is their voices, it is their weaving fingers of experience, which gives these myths of old a vibrant new texture that readers will be able to feel as well as behold.