Book Review: Helen of Troy by Margaret George

 

Goodreads Summary: Acclaimed author Margaret George tells the story of the legendary Greek woman whose face "launched a thousand ships" in this New York Times bestseller.
The Trojan War, fought nearly twelve hundred years before the birth of Christ, and recounted in Homer's Iliad, continues to haunt us because of its origins: one woman's beauty, a visiting prince's passion, and a love that ended in tragedy.

Laden with doom, yet surprising in its moments of innocence and beauty, Helen of Troy is an exquisite page-turner with a cast of irresistible, legendary characters—Odysseus, Hector, Achilles, Menelaus, Priam, Clytemnestra, Agamemnon, as well as Helen and Paris themselves. With a wealth of material that reproduces the Age of Bronze in all its glory, it brings to life a war that we have all learned about but never before experienced.

Goodreads Rating: 3.94 stars with over 10,000 ratings

Genre Listing: Historical Fiction, Mythology, Romance, Fantasy

Goodreads Challenge: 6/48

2022 Reading Challenge: #27 Read a book with a title that doesn't start with an article ( find the entire challenge here)

Book Review:

Hello, readers! I hope everyone is doing well. I am eagerly counting down to my staycation, which starts after I get out of work on Friday. I'm hoping to get a lot of stuff done around the house and maybe read some books. Mostly, I'm just thrilled to close my office door and not look at my work computer for a week. 

I had not anticipated reading Helen of Troy when I did. I wanted something light to read, and somehow I knowingly picked a 600-page historical fiction about greek mythology. The heart wants what the heart wants, I suppose. This is the third of Margaret George's books I've read. Each one I've been hooked on from the beginning. This one was no different, and I stayed up late last night finishing it. I only had 100 pages left, so who needs sleep?

I was very conflicted about this book. I thought that Helen and Paris were so incredibly selfish, yet I was rooting for them. I wanted to hate them, their relationship, and how much they didn't care about it affecting their countries, but I couldn't. I was vested in their story and wanted good things to happen to them. I appreciated the mythology in this and getting to read about many different mythological/historical figures. 

The biggest issue with this book is that the kindle version I bought desperately needed proofreading. There were a lot of weird typos, and some pages were repeated. It kind of took me out of the story when it happened. I had to investigate to make sure I wasn't crazy or didn't switch back to a previous page. In addition, once the war ended, I found myself not caring as much and was just reading it to get done with it. It was still interesting but wasn't nearly as much as leading up to the Trojan War and during it. I suspect that Margaret George took more historical liberties with this than in her other books because of the mythological content. If you want something more on the biographical side of Historical Fiction, I would keep that in mind (I assume that the Bronze Age is not a timeframe that is easy to have historically correct.) Overall, I'd recommend it if you like Historical Fiction/ Greek Mythology.