I really enjoyed this. It's a book that aims to fill in the gaps between other narratives. So what did Penelope get up to in the 20 years between Odysseus leaving and returning after the battles at Troy? It's not the first book to take this gap as an invitation to be inventive, but it's certainly a good entry in the field. Told by the goddess Hera, there is a great mixture of feminine understanding, exasperation at males (all of them, present & absent), of taking matters into your own hands and general snark. How did an island over populated with women manage without a generation of men? in this case by the women filling males roles, because who else is there to do them? Yet the women are not all united. As with all human interactions, some people have different motivations and different reasons for their actions. Love, hope, freedom, hate, they all feature in here, driving different people forward. It's good, but the story isn't exactly driven along. It meanders a fair bit. I suspect that is the reason for this being the first of a trilogy. I think it may have been a better book had it been a bit snappier. ( )

Damn. This was bad. Not like, horrifically bad, but just like... generally bad. And I already rate pretty harshly, so poor Ithaca just didn't have a chance.

Ithaca tells the story of Penelope (of The Odyssey fame), dealing with the rash-like abundance of suitors as she waits for her husband Odysseus to return to their beloved island of Ithaca. Trouble begins when raiders begin to encroach the island, pushing Penelope to marry, and the secret arrival of her cousin Clytemnestra, who just murdered her husband Agamemnon of the The Oresteia fame and is on the lam. Machinations, goddess-drama, and annoying whelps ensue, until fate has its way on the poor island.

Ithaca isn't a poorly constructed novel so much as it is boring, overwritten, and mindless. It didn't present the reader with anything new, and instead took a potentially fruitful scenario and pondered on and on until it withered up and died. I have no doubt that the only reason this was published (and sold as a TRILOGY!?) is that the author is established in the industry and that there is a large publishing push right now with Greek and other mythology retelling to secure enough sold copies. I mean hell, it got me: trendy and beautiful cover, women’s fiction, Ancient Greek story. Triple whammy book request if there’s ever been one. Unfortunately, this is the kind of book they warn you about in elementary school: it’s truly the worst book with the best cover that I’ve read in a long time.

The story has a fascination with the trappings of Ancient Greek storytelling that I fear the author believed would carry more weight than it did. It has that oh-so-memorable turns of phrase for anyone who studied the language: we get a good “rosy-fingered dawn” and an interesting inverted patronymic of “father-of” with many male characters—the most annoying unfortunately is the constant “what will the poets think?” anytime a woman does anything a bit off the book, shall we say. It seems that a woman cannot so much as breathe in an unladylike way and it’s noted for the reader like a giant red arrow for all to see. There's very little subtlety in this book. This is the sort of stuff that "feminist retelling" criticism was made for.

While these turns of phrase show that the author has, at least, put some thought into the accoutrements of her writing, so many things were just—well—straight up wrong historically speaking. And without any explanation as to why. I think the standout was the relationship and actions of Penelope’s (enslaved!) maids, who all acted like this massive line of power just… didn’t exist? Yes, they bowed and simpered a bit, but the odd veiling etiquette, the way they all spoke to the queen, and the level of agency they had were all just massively ignored. It told me right away that the people who would enjoy this are not the ones who know very much about this world...

Perhaps the most egregious is the overall tone of the novel: the author employs the goddess Hera as the narrator, which speaking on a narrative level sucks all the life out of the God damn thing. Naturally, then, it’s written in a very grand voice that the author is simply not good enough to pull off authentically. And there were so many damn adjectives! Double triple adjectives! Purple prose my god!

Basically, and I said this earlier, this book is boring, without any reason for being so. I always feel like I have to reiterate, I read boring books: look at my classics tag. Like, if your plot is thin, the characterization or the theme or the beauty of your writing has got to be superb. Unfortunately, this novel does not supply any of those. The characters are flat and there is somehow no character development in the 400+ pages. There are no themes other than "Wow, did you know women did stuff and had feelings two thousand years ago?", and the small bits of beauty in the text are buried beneath eye-rolling metaphors without a hint of something gruff and good.

Anyway. Eh. ( )

I was interested in a novel focused on Penelope and how she could have managed to fend off a pack of unruly suitors for years in the absence of Odysseus, her husband. This was an interesting take on that, with Penelope forced to use subterfuge because of the male dominated culture. Only an old counsellor, Medon, was secretly sympathetic to her.

Pirates beset the island, appearing to come from a far off country, but they don't ask to be paid off as usual, and Penelope, Medon and Penelope's female allies all suspect one of the men squatting in her house to be responsible, trying to force her into accepting him. Meanwhile, to favour one suitor is to trigger civil war with the rest, and her teenage son, Telemachus, has bought into the culture of male superiority and is being difficult.

To cap it all, the children of Clytemnestra arrive demanding Penelope's assistance in finding their mother so that her son, Orestes, can kill her, something demanded by the culture before he can become king of Mycenae. Penelope has already worked out that Clytemnestra is on Ithaca, and wants to smuggle her off the island, but she also desperately needs the political support of Mycenae, and if Orestes doesn't become its king, his rapacious uncle, Menelaus, will take over and swallow up Ithaca.

The story is told from the viewpoint of the goddess, Hera, having her own problems due to the bullying dominance of Zeus. Although this has the benefit of showing various characters in different places, it does introduce a distance between the reader and Penelope. There were some interesting characters, including the eastern female warrior, whose people gave rise to the legend of the Amazons, and who trains the women to defend the island - which must be done in secret. The underground women's network is also interesting. On balance, I would rate the book as a 3 star read. ( )

It's 8 years after the Trojan war ended and Penelope has been using every strategy to keep herself Ithaca out of the hands of the ruthless and useless men who would kill her son and inevitably destroy it in a way with the other entitled suitors. It is a nearly relentless exposure to toxic masculinity as narrated by the goddess Hera who certainly knows her toxic males. Only Penelope's stratagems and the bitter humor of goddess and women forced to employ indirection make it palatable, but never becomes a comfortable narrator. ( )

“Once upon a time, there were three queens in Greece. One was chaste and pure, one a temptress whore, one a murderous hag.”

It has been seventeen years since Odysseus left Ithaca to fight in the Trojan War, leaving his young bride Penelope and infant son Telemachus behind. The war lasted ten years but Odysseus has not returned. Penelope is left to fend for herself and her son and run the kingdom of Ithaca with help of her household of maids and advisors. Odysseus’s prolonged absence has fueled rumors of his death encouraging hordes of suitors to flock to Penelope’s door and unashamedly becoming a fixture in her home. She has to make up excuses to hold them at bay. In addition to tactfully handling the volatile situation with her suitors, she is also troubled by the presence of a queen being hunted by her vengeful children for murdering their father. Penelope's son Telemachus, intent on proving he is a worthy successor to his father, joins the militia movement that is training for fighting the raiders who target their island at regular intervals. In other words, a lot is going on in Ithaca and Penelope has her hands full.

The presence of the Greek goddesses, each wielding their power over their devotees and their subtle manipulations, not to mention their limited interactions with one another makes for an interesting read. The exchanges between Hera and Athena, in particular, are quite amusing. Hera, as a narrator, does not mince her words –be it on her opinions about her husband’s amorous exploits or her true feeling about her stepchildren, her observations on Penelope’s suitors or her biased opinions of the Grecian queens among whom Clytemnestra is her favorite. She also holds nothing back while voicing her own brutally honest opinions about some of the "heroes" and how poets and bards wax eloquent while singing praises of their exploits, often neglecting to mention the contributions of their female counterparts or the lesser known mortals who have played an important role in their success.

“I am the goddess of queens, wives and women; my tasks may be thankless, but I perform them nonetheless.”

While I did enjoy Hera’s narration, I felt that her views and perceptions dominated the story and somehow relegated Penelope’s perspective to the sidelines. Penelope is portrayed as quiet but observant and capable of ruling in her husband’s absence. Having read Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad recently and loving it, I had hoped to hear more about Penelope and her maids and the events in Ithaca during Odysseus’s absence from Penelope’s perspective. I did enjoy the detailed description of the lives of the women on the island. The women in Claire North’s Ithaca - Penelope, her loyal maids and advisors, and the warriors who take it upon themselves to defend their island from threats are brave and intelligent and empower one another when faced with adversity.

With its well-written, fluid and elegant prose, even pacing throughout the novel, and themes of feminism, survival and loyalty Claire North’s Ithaca is an engaging read that I would recommend to fans of Greek Mythology and those fond of feminist retellings. I eagerly look forward to reading the next two books in this trilogy.

Many thanks to Redhook Books and NetGalley for granting access to a digital review copy of this novel. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. ( )