Circe by Madeleine Miller
Circe by Madeline Miller: The Fierce Feminist Retelling You Didn’t Know You Needed
“When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist.”
When I say Circe changed the way I read mythology, I mean it.
I’ve read countless Greek retellings, but none have managed to make an immortal character feel so painfully human.
If you’re a fan of mythology, feminist fiction, or character-driven stories with lyrical prose, Circe is the kind of book that earns a permanent spot on your shelf.
Genre: mythological fiction, historical fantasy, and literary fiction
The Premise
Circe is born to Helios, the powerful and prideful Titan Sun god, and Perse, a beautiful sea nymph with venom in her veins.
From the moment she is born, Circe is an outsider. She's neither beautiful in the way gods admire, nor powerful in the way they respect.
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When she discovers she has the power of pharmaka—witchcraft drawn from the natural world—she unknowingly threatens the divine order.
The gods, as expected, do what gods always do when faced with someone different: they exile her.
But her exile isn’t the end of her story. It’s the beginning.
Circe: The Misfit Daughter of a God
Circe is not what you’d expect from the daughter of a Titan.
She lacks her father Helios’s brilliance, her mother Perse’s manipulative charm, and her siblings’ dangerous allure.
In a family obsessed with beauty and power, Circe is ordinary—and in the divine world, ordinary is unforgivable.
What’s most tragic about Circe’s childhood is her blind devotion to her father. When Helios returned from his blazing journeys across the sky, Circe would sit by his feet, hanging on to his stories, mistaking his indulgent smiles for affection.
“So many years I had spent as a child sifting his bright features for his thoughts. But he was a harp with only one string, and the note it played was himself."
For a moment, she’d believe she mattered to him.
But Helios’s love was an illusion—a performance he maintained because admiration fed his vanity.
He wasn’t a father in any human sense; he was a narcissist basking in his own reflection, and Circe’s innocent worship was just another mirror.
As she grows older, Circe begins to understand that his warmth was never love, only ego.
That realization marks one of the first cracks in her blind loyalty to the gods.
It’s the moment she starts seeing divinity not as perfection, but as corruption wrapped in gold.
It’s this awakening that sets her apart.
Her Mother and Siblings: Cruelty in Disguise
If Helios is the embodiment of cold pride, then Perse—Circe’s mother—is his mirror image in bitterness.
Beautiful, calculating, and perpetually dissatisfied, Perse treats Circe like a flaw she’s desperate to hide.
She treats Circe like an embarrassment—an ugly daughter who won’t help her climb the divine social ladder. Perse is too consumed with appearances and divine politics to ever see her daughter as a person.
Her siblings are worse: powerful, arrogant, and venomous.
“gods are born of ichor and nectar, their excellences already bursting from their fingertips. So they find their fame by proving what they can mar"
They inherit their parents’ power and arrogance, moving through the world as if it owes them reverence. Where Circe is gentle, they are ruthless; where she seeks connection, they crave dominance.
But the relationship that cuts deepest is with her younger brother, Aeetes, whom she practically raises.
As a child, Circe dotes on him—teaching him, comforting him, loving him with the kind of devotion she never received herself.
In those early years, she mistakes his dependence for love. When he smiles at her, when he leans on her, she believes she’s finally found the bond her family denied her.
Yet, just like Helios, her brother’s affection is conditional. The moment he grows into his godhood—powerful, admired, and ruthless—he leaves her behind.
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No gratitude, no loyalty, no memory of the sister who once shielded him from their parents’ cruelty.
His betrayal doesn’t come in violence, but in something far colder: indifference.
It’s a pattern that defines Circe’s early life—loving people who are incapable of loving her back.
Miller writes these dynamics with ruthless precision. This isn’t just a dysfunctional divine family—it’s a masterclass in exploring isolation, emotional neglect, and the slow, soul-shaking realization that your family may never truly see you.
Exile: The Island That Becomes a Mirror
After years of being dismissed and humiliated by her divine family, she finally discovers her true power: witchcraft.
Unlike the other gods who are born with greatness, Circe’s magic is learned, crafted through will and instinct. It comes from the earth—from roots, herbs, and the raw energy of life itself.
Her first act of real power, though, is not heroic. It’s emotional, impulsive, and deeply human.
When her mortal lover betrays her and plans to marry a beautiful nymph, Circe lets jealousy and heartbreak consume her.
In a single act of rage and magic, she transforms the nymph into a monstrous sea creature—a being as terrifying on the outside as Circe feels on the inside.
“Witches are not so delicate.”
It’s the moment everything changes.
The gods, fearful of her power, cast her out. She is exiled to the lonely island of Aiaia, cut off from her family, her world, and everything she’s ever known.
At first, exile feels like punishment. But then, slowly, it becomes liberation.
Away from the cruel noise of Olympus, Circe begins to breathe.
For the first time, Circe doesn’t have to shrink herself to survive. She doesn’t have to beg for love or attention. There is no one left to please.
And so, she decides:
If the world insists on seeing her as something to be feared—then she will become it.
Alone on Aiaia, she claims her identity fully. She becomes the goddess she was always meant to be—the goddess of witchcraft.
Her exile doesn’t destroy her. It reveals her.
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Lovers, Mortals, and Her Son
Circe’s relationships with mortals and gods alike shape her transformation, but none as deeply as her connection with Odysseus.
When he washes up on her island, he’s not the hero sung about in myths. He’s weary, broken, and human.
Odysseus sees her not as a goddess or a witch, but as a woman.
He brings both companionship and heartbreak — because Circe, more than anyone, knows that love with a mortal is always temporary.
“He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none.”
When he leaves to return to his world, he takes a piece of her heart with him — and unknowingly leaves behind a part of himself, too.
That part is their son.
She names him Telegonus.
From the moment he is born, her entire existence revolves around keeping him safe from Athena, who sees the boy as a threat to Odysseus’s legacy and tries relentlessly to destroy him.
One of the most powerful moments in the novel is when Circe carries her infant son on her back as she spreads layers of protective magic around her island — herbs, potions, barriers of power that pulse with her love and fear.
She refuses to sleep, refuses to rest, weaving protection into every corner of Aiaia so no god can touch him.
When Telegonus finally demands to meet his father, every instinct tells her to keep him close, but she realizes that true love isn’t possession — it’s freedom.
So she lets him go.
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And when he keeps his promise and returns, her heart breaks open all over again.
Because for the first time in her life, someone she loved didn’t abandon her. Her son came back.
In time, their story intertwines with Odysseus’s wife, Penelope, and his son, Telemachus — two mortals whose paths lead them to Circe’s island.
Telemachus surprises her. He becomes the stillness she never knew she needed.
Their bond blossoms into something tender — love built not on passion or power, but on understanding.
“You have always been the worst of my children,” he said. “Be sure to not dishonor me.
I have a better idea. I will do as I please, and when you count your children, leave me out.”
By the end of her story, Circe has faced gods, monsters, and her own self-doubt.
But her final act of defiance is the one that defines her: she stands before her father and demands her exile be lifted.
No fear. No begging.
Just the unshakable confidence of a woman who finally knows her worth.
It’s the ultimate rebellion. A middle finger to every god who ever tried to silence her.
A goddess. A mother. A woman free.
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There Are Many Circes in Mythology—This Is the One That Stays With You
Historically, Circe is remembered as the seductress who turned men into pigs, but Miller rips that label apart and gives us something deeper.
She gives us a woman who’s been miscast by history, then tells the story from Circe’s point of view.
This version is intimate. Gritty. Feminist. Wise.
Why I Recommend Circe
Whether you’re into mythology or not, Circe is a book that hits something universal.
It’s not about gods.
It’s about what it means to carve your own place in the world when the world refuses to make room for you.
Until my next read,
Marianna ♥
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