As the world fades, I find myself wondering if perhaps purpose is not a single thing one finds, but rather a thing one finds over and over again. I’m only eighteen, but I’ve already had so many purposes. I have been a mortal girl whose purpose was to marry well. I have been a priestess whose purpose was to serve. I have been a monster whose purpose was to avenge. I find that I’m excited to learn what my next purpose will be.
page 312
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​And that is enough.
Table of Contents
Et tu, Medusa?
I saw a copy of I, Medusa while at a Book City location recently. I have a bit of a fondness for Ancient Greek myth reimagining like The Song of Achilles and Circe (both by Madeline Miller) so I decided to put the book on my endlessly growing to-be-read pile. Like with the previous two Greek myth reimaginings, I had heard bits and pieces of the myth but never the whole story.
So on a whim, I put a hold for it at the library and this book was part of my second library haul of the year. In addition to the striking cover design, the hardcover edition I read also has black and gold sprayed edges which I also think look really nice. Once again proving that if sprayed edges are always better if they aren’t one solid colour.
It just so happens that I also have another contemporary reimagining of this myth on my to-be-read pile, Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes which I think I added years ago but never got around to reading. Now that I’ve read this book, I don’t think I want to read Stone Blind any time soon so it will most likely sit on my TBR pile for another year or so.
Without further ado, let’s get into it.
The Book
Let’s get the basics out of the way – I, Medusa is a historical fantasy novel that reimagines the story of Medusa, a so-called monster from Ancient Greek mythology. Like with other contemporary novels of this nature, namely the very popular Madeline Miller novels, this novel applies a contemporary feminist and queer lens to its reimagining of the story.
The titular Medusa is the main character and the story is told entirely from her perspective. The book is divided into four distinct parts, in order – Mortal, Maiden, Mistress, Monster. Medusa in the beginning of the story is seventeen and she turns eighteen near the very end of the book. This meant that while this book is ostensibly the author’s adult debut, it very much read like a young adult fantasy novel in tone.
I was not a massive fan of Medusa’s character in this book and it was mostly because she is a teenager in this book and in general I don’t like reading stories from the perspectives of teenagers. That said, she is generally a likeable person with a strong sense of justice, and I think she is perhaps the least morally reprehensible character in a book with some absolute assholes.
That brings me to themes, this is another book that is very unsubtle about its themes. There is a lot happening in this book. The myth of Medusa can broadly be interpreted as a story about feminine rage. Medusa and her two sisters, Stheno and Euryale who have been turned into monsters by a patriarchal society enact righteous revenge on men. That interpretation can very much be applied to this reimagining of the story.
In addition to that, the book adds on a racial dynamic to the myth. I, Medusa is written by a black woman and Medusa herself is depicted as a black woman. Her exact point of origin is left unclear but the book hints at somewhere in what is now Sub-Saharan Africa. There are scenes in the book involving Medusa’s sisters performing haircare on her locs and another scene where Medusa tells one of the acolytes at the Temple of Athena in Athens to not touch her hair.
Along those lines, Medusa is depicted as a foreigner facing prejudice when she arrives at the temple in Athena. A lot of her fellow acolytes come from rich Athenian families and they look down upon her because she is in their words, a metic, short-hand for the word “metoikos”, meaning foreigner. She is not Greek and I also read that as, she is not white.
This book also attempts a more nuanced look at the rape culture themes present in Medusa’s story, it does two separate attempts of this; once with a side character, and once with Medusa herself. There is a brief scene where Medusa is sexually assaulted, the scene was brief and not graphic. I think the book’s attempts at portraying this particular theme got the job done reasonably well without being crass or graphic about it which I personally appreciated.
There is also a bit of a queer love story which was…fine. I don’t think this book is doing anything particularly novel with this aspect it in fact very much falls into the tragic sapphic romance archetype which I am very much not a fan of. Even as a tragic romance, it does not rise to the levels of Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles which set the bar quite high in the specific sub-genre of “tragic romances in Ancient Greek myth reimaginings”.
The biggest criticism I can levy against this book is that it tries to do a lot and doesn’t do any of it really well. It tries to tackle a lot of heavy, complicated themes like patriarchy, rape culture, and racism and does an okay job at all of these. Medusa as a teenager grates on me just enough for me to feel a low level of irritation about her character throughout the whole book. The romance is similarly just okay. To the book’s credit, it does not overstay its welcome. At 320 pages, the book’s flaws don’t really have a chance to linger and fester.
Concluding Thoughts
I, Medusa is an okay book. In this month where I read three different excellent books, all of which set the bar very high so this book was up against some very stiff competition. As far as Greek myth reimagings are concerned, this not the best I’ve read but it is by no means bad either. Serviceable, if I had to pick a single word to describe it.
I’ll continue to read these Ancient Greek myth reimaginings as long as they keep throwing interesting twists into these ancient tales. That said, I think I’ll take a break from reading anything Ancient Greek myth adjacent for a while, between Hades II late last year and this book I think I am burned out on Ancient Greek stuff for at least a year.
That’s all from me. See y’all in the next one.
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