Jan 17, 2024
I am so anti Madeline Miller it is insane
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I am so anti Madeline Miller it is insane
(Sorry if it looks blurry, idk how to fix that)
Okay, I gotta do this for my own sanity because it's word vomit time. Song of Achilles rant. 0/5 stars to this one.
Okay. I am not a fan of war stories or of tragedies. This was both of those things. So I will admit that this was perhaps not my genre. THAT BEING SAID, I can usually point to a tragedy or a war story and go "that was objectively good/well-done, but not my thing." This was neither good nor well-done.
The main appeal of this book - its 'heart,' if you will - seems to be the ""love story"" between Patroclus and Achilles. Unfortunately, I'm leaving the book with 0 understanding of what they like about each other. Achilles was lowkey an enormously terrible person. Patroclus KNOWS THIS. He just is an idiot who continuously gives him the benefit of the doubt over and over again. Achilles sends girls off to be raped. He kills an enemy and drags his corpse around for ??? reasons besides he can. Patroclus is sitting there just going "O! His blond cascading waves! Wow!! He is everything to me my SOUL ahhh." Their emotional connection is deeply shallow in how it's written.
ANYWAY fine. Whatever. The narrative also deeply hates women. The only important female characters are a) Achilles's goddess mom who's continuously villified, and b) a slave girl (the only character I actually liked, RIP) who randomly dies at the end for no reason other than shock value. Women are sent off to be raped continuously; the narrative justifies this. I understand that in times of war back in this time period this actually happened, but I am baffled by the author's seemingly constant attempts to portray this POSITIVELY. Achilles himself is just like 'yeah, this girl's a bartering chip!" and Patroclus, while he's not cool with it and does go save the girl, totally rationalizes this and the author clearly thinks it's justified !!????
No.
And let's talk about that shitty ass pacing. Nothing happens!!! For half the book!!! And then they all go to war and the ONLY reason Patroclus is there is because he wants to follow Achilles. Because they share a 'so devoted the lines blur' Bond apparently, like Will/Jem or Charles/Edwin. News flash. They will NEVER HAVE A BOND ABOVE BONDS LIKE WILL/JEM OR CHARLES/EDWIN.
Anyway!!! Whenever Patroclus talks about Achilles, it's just like oH My gOd hE'S bEaUtIfUl. Okay bro!!! We get it!! Y'all have to have sex ALL THE TIME because this is Madeline Miller's shitty yaoi fanfic of Greek Myths!!! Greek myths are deeply gay which is great, but NOT LIKE THIS! It's giving a middle schooler who just finished Junjo Romantica and Percy Jackson and decided to write a crossover fic. And, yes, the prose is that bad. It's so fucking simplistic. I cannot even.
I hated this book. I hated this book painfully. And I cannot believe that I accidentally gave one of my favourite of my own fanfics a title from it. I like, want to go change the title. I just used it because I liked the quote. AUGH.
Would give this negative stars if I could. I do not think I've disliked a book this much since Queen of Air and Darkness, and at least Qoaad had, like, some funny moments and didn't hate women.
random rant: i am a song of achilles hater
disclaimer: i read this book years ago and i only got to like page 200 before i gave up
first of all, the authors descriptions of the bodies of these characters is WEIRD heavy focus on feet i hate it. especially when the characters are still children
⚠️TW⚠️: SA
i forgot gemma tried to kill wendy and .... wow. like HECK. i love how this show understands addiction .000001 % i hate this show so much. godbless the actors.
ya know ... ya think if k/urt s/utter filmed the prison sequences in ya know an ACTUAL prison he would’ve read up on jail tattoos and KNOW that the THOMAS tattoo makes no fucking sense.
look man idgaf if it was four years ago having juice being involved with covering up tara’s death was handled so fucking poorly like...i sort of get that he? was protecting the club? in some fucking convoluted way? but no way you get to turn round after six seasons and act like he didn’t really care about her at all...no way man...
it’s not that they were the closest characters or nothing but all the boys protected tara and the kids and it’s pretty hard to believe it was only ever out of deference to jax like there must have been some kind of feeling there. so to have one of them cover it up and lie about it and watch his people get caught up in a gang war over it was super dumb...especially since it’s implied he’s only lying so jax doesn’t kick him out or something? like it literally never made sense to me why he would risk it all to protect it all in such a dumb fucking way
and when he tells jax it seems like it’s bc he’s about to die and only bc he feels bad about lying to jax...not that he feels bad tara got murdered
just another plot hole in that piece of shit show that im not over
May I ask what you have so against Kurt's writing? You chose to play a character that was created by Kurt but you seem to bash his writing a lot. Is it that you would have preferred Jax be a hero? Because that's not realistic. And I saw you had issue with the tattoos, but while prison tats are not supposed to happen, most guys come home with full sleeves, so that actually is realistic and that's not just research from me. That's having relatives that have been inside and visiting prisons.
OOC. I have issues with how some of his characters developed ( and TRUST me I’m not the only one with an RP blog for SOA to think this way *** AGAIN, not ALL do. ). While I LOVE what he created some of the characters felt VERY OOC by the end. There are things that I would NEVER picture J/uice doing or even C/hibs. I think you also need to keep in mind that while you can LOVE a series you can ALSO find flaws in it, THAT doesn’t mean you hate a show or appreciate it less. Trust me, I also recognize how the show is supposed shed light on prison life, and what it means to be ‘recycled’ through the prison system ( there was a beautiful post circulating around and I CANNOT FIND IT ). I also think through my writing it’s OBVIOUS that I have no issue with Jax become who is is through the course of the show ????? It’s quite frankly not possible for him to be a hero ( he’s VERY hypocritical at times ) you’re not really supposed to like Jax, and YEAH he has a pretty face so it’s easier to forget that but ? Never once have I shied away from that side of him ? I’ve actually been QUITE aware of his behavior. ( I just don’t choose to always rp it because some things are VERY triggering ). I never said pr/ison ta/ttoos were the issue I had - I think it was just how BIG it was, and it seemed to be so pristine that ? I find that hard to believe with prison ta/ttoo gu/ns that are homemade, and the ink wouldn’t really hold up as well as Jax’s did ( since they do fade a litte after you FIRST get them done / also black ink tattoos tend to fade slightly after they heal ) . I’ve done some research into that aspect, and have seen issues with that as well. I mean, I WISH K/urt would’ve shown that aspect because … that IS very realistic, and that’s not really what I had issues with. A reminder if you do have an issue with how I feel about things / SOA at times there is an unfollow button. ( OR if you want to point this out to me ? My IMS are open.
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