Madeline Millers, Song of Achilles depicts a beautiful relationship of friendship and love within the Ancient Greek period.
The novel follows Patroclus' relationship with Achilles, from their initial meeting to their exploits during the Trojan War while focusing on their romantic relationship.
I am a lover of romance novels but never stepped into historical fiction so this was a first for myself.
This novel is set during the Greek heroic age from the perspective of young prince Patroclus who becomes exiled from his home.
The story starts with Patroclus leaving his home after an accident and moves to Phthia and becomes introduced to Prince achilles.
Over time they create a bond in more ways than others, developing feelings for each other.
They befriend each other and become best friends going against God's wishes.
Achilles gets sent away to train under Chiron, Centaur for three years but to his surprise Patroclus isn't too far behind as he runs away and joins him at his retreat.
News strikes that all heroes have been called to war, meaning Achilles has to join the military for the battle of Troy to save Helen of Sparta after she has been kidnapped.
Through twists of turns of their journey they arrive there and end up living there for nine years in Troy.
Conversation starts to get heated and Achilles withdraws from the war over time leaving Patroclus to convince him to rejoin.
Fates tests them with a terrible sacrifice and as a consequence Patroclus impersonates Achilles wearing his armour and ends up losing his life swarming through with his army.
His body is brought back to camp leaving Achilles devastated triggering his fire from within to go avenge Patroclus's killer, Hector.
From entering the depths into Troy, Achilles finds himself shot by Trojan Prince, Paris.
One thing that was fascinating was as a person who hasn't read historical fiction it was interesting to learn about gods, mortals and war heroes.
This war story took Madeline ten years to write as it involved mounds of research and work to retell the Trojan War and a famous Greek poem, The Iliad, written by Homer, Greek poet.
Involving facts and certain events that actually happened made it more fun with all the characters being real people in history.
Madeline introduces these characters throughout their journey up until the war.
I loved the setting it was set in as it was so exciting to delve into a time frame, within the palaces and different kingdoms.
A character I loved throughout was Thetis, mother of Achilles who is a sea nymph, a goddess of water.
She is a very powerful and dominant character throughout constantly trying to divide the two lovers but doesn't succeed.
The love story between the main characters within this story Achilles and Patroclus is passionate and blooms throughout and you could feel the connection between the two which made you bond with them.
Throughout there were prophecies which made you think that certain events would take place and even though you knew certain parts would happen it was still shocking as it built over time.
The biggest prophecy, being the ending made it all the more heartbreaking as the two star crossed lovers lose each other during battle.
I do wish the prophecy changed a little by chance but obviously the whole point is that it is to become true as I would've liked a twist even though the ending was sad enough.
I definitely would recommend this book to people who have a love for Greek mythology and also people who have never read this genre before as it is a good way to ease them into something new and different and for definite love.
Overall I really enjoyed this book as it was exciting and you built a love for all the characters and was enticed in all of their different stories and myths through the Greek era.
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