The Odyssey is the first book I have had to read for my university course. It can be commended as it's one of the baselines in the history of literature, and the classic Greek tale of adventure has been built upon and explored by so many writers. The plot is alright, it's just the means in which the epic is written that I did not enjoy. I acknowledge that The Odyssey has been translated many a time throughout history, whereas now it reads like a list of events just stated to you. There is no tension as the hero Odysseus has no character flaws and he has the 'Gods on his side' and as a result cannot fail Further, the amount of times it is mentioned a character is 'son of ____" the father meaning absolutely nothing to the reader and playing no role in the story is painful, there was no character development and as a result, though highly significant, I found the book ultimately dull.

(Future Ed as I am going and updating missing reviews on storygraph that I had written on an old Bookstagram: now that I have learnt an appreciation of Greek mythology and have a greater understanding of it, my rating of 'The Odyssey' would likely be much higher, though I won't amend this until I reread one day for the sake of posterity. I still preferred both the Iliad and Aeneid to 'The Odyssey' though, these being the two other principle classical epics I have read at time of writing)