It was unfortunate that this came out around the same time as Circe by Madeline Miller, which took up a lot of the "reimagined mythology from the woman's perspective" space. So to my chagrin Silence of the Girls sat on my nightstand untouched for too long. Once I finally picked it up, I was blown away by the imaginative choices Barker made to bring these overlooked women's voices to life, and I finished it in two days. Highly recommend for anyone with any interest in mythology or ancient history!

Maybe my expectations were too high, given all the hype around this book. I love a good feminist dystopian story, and this one seemed particularly plausible, but I couldn’t get past the jerky, trying-too-hard-to-be-poetic language and the cliches within some of the female relationships.