Medusa

 Book Title: Medusa

Author: Jessie Burton

Date Started: August 29th 2021

Date Completed: August 31st 2021

Genres: Historical, Fantasy

Quality Rating: Five Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

Jessie Burton has written some fantastic stories, and she's back with a very nice reimagining of the story of Medusa, retelling the myth and its contexts as well as rewriting its story for contemporary audiences. And the book is all the more moving for its utterly stunning illustrations by Olivia Lomenech Gill.

At first, I found the language to be a little too flowery, to the point of me not totally understanding what was being said, but this eases after the initial passages and Burton leaps into a story reminiscent of a fairy tale book, but spinning in the Greek tragedy and a whole host of exploration into misogyny, toxic masculinity and rape culture.

It's such a moving story, it's strange that Medusa's full tale isn't retold more. Though that is largely due to the fact that Medusa's story seems pretty definitive in the collective canon everyone grows up with; she is a monster Perseus is sent to kill. Simple as that. But Medusa is a name, not a creature species, and she was once a normal girl pursued by a god (which sums up maybe half of classical female characters). It's very rich source material and Burton gets really creative with it, repainting the picture to before Perseus was even a hero, and letting Medusa reclaim it herself.

The book is rather short, but the perfect length to tell this story. It is also perfectly suited to its artwork, and I can't help but feel it's the mature storybook retelling a timeless piece of folklore/mythology I would've loved to add to my collection as a child - and still do as an adult. I'm looking forward to buying myself the physical copy when it releases, and I hope the illustrations are available as prints too.