Greek Mythology: Gods and Heroes Brought to Life by Robert Garland offers a refreshing and engaging approach to the classic tales of Greek mythology. Instead of simply recounting the stories, Garland allows the characters themselves to tell their stories in their own words, giving readers a new perspective on these ancient legends.

Garland emphasizes the flexibility and variability of Greek mythology, pointing out that there is no one "right" version of any myth. Each storyteller has the freedom to interpret the myths in their own way, leading to many different versions of the same story. This approach allows for a deeper understanding of the characters and their motivations, as they are presented as complex individuals with their own unique perspectives and experiences.

What sets this book apart from other retellings of Greek mythology is its focus on the characters themselves. Instead of being simply plot devices or symbols, the gods and heroes are given the opportunity to reflect on their lives and actions, providing a glimpse into their inner worlds. This makes for a more human and relatable portrayal of these larger-than-life figures, allowing readers to connect with them on a deeper level.

Overall, Greek Mythology: Gods and Heroes Brought to Life is a must-read for anyone interested in Greek mythology. Garland's innovative approach offers a fresh take on these classic stories, making them more accessible and engaging than ever before.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book, unfortunately I wasn’t able to get to it before it was archived but will review in full when I do.

I've searched for a book on mythology that is easy to read and makes the gods interesting enough to remember. I wanted to be able to answer the Jeopardy questions and this book made it possible. This author picked about 40 of the more notable gods and gives stories that are believable and easy to read. I enjoyed that narrative of the Gods themselves. A good table of contents lets you skip and choose the god you are interested in and the chapter is short and sweet so you can lay it down without having to review when you pick it up again. Older teens and adults will find this an easy read and it will keep your interest. I received a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I have always loved the Greek myths and this compendium is one of the best books on the subject. I learned an enormous amount and it was always fun, lively and absorbing.

A unique look at Greek Mythology, told from the perspective of those at the forefront of each story. This book is engaging and entertaining, though I agree with other reviewers that a base knowledge of greek mythology would be useful prior to reading this.

My rating is actually 3.5/5

Thank you to Pen & Sword History and Netgalley for this copy😊

This was a very interesting book! A voice is given to the Gods/Goddesses and Heroes as they tell us their stories. It is a nice way to be introduced to Greek Mythology as each of the stories are quite short and in a specific order: the character introduced at the end of a story is the one narrating the next one.

As someone who does not know much about Greek Mythology yet, I found the writing style easy to read and the humour was a bonus. Only some expressions seemed a bit out of place sometimes. A lot of information is given and I wish my brain could remember all of it, even though I don’t mind forgetting some of the gruesome details😅

The author explains that these stories can be told in many different ways depending on the person writing them and so, got me interested in reading more to compare them.

I do recommend this book to beginners (like me) as well as non-beginners looking for a new approach to the myths✨

Princess Fuzzypants here: Cheeky. Irreverent. Saucy and a touch ribald. This is Greek Mythology with a twist of humour. Told in the first person, god or hero, the individual in the myth tells the tale from their own subjective point of view. And boy, do they tell it like it was. It reads a bit like a “roast” and no one from Zeus on down is spared the wicked wit.

Probably this book would be enjoyed more if the reader is someone with a previous knowledge of the stories through more traditional sources. It is definitely not a book for children. All others will be entertained as the characters explain their victories and defeats from their perspective. It is a fun, light read.

Five purrs and two paws up,

As the author points out in the intro--myths are stories. There's no rule in how to tell them, no one right version. So he opts to tell them in a humorous, first-person-POV style, accessible to younger readers. Of course, most of the young readers I know are in love with Rick Riordan because he excels at exactly those three things. This author does get some chestnuts in--when I saw this dedication, I thought he was going to be a lot of fun: "As always,
I also want to pay tribute to Sir Mick Jagger for his indefatigability and invincibility."

Here's a more typical excerpt, this one from the story of Jason: "I knew that recovering the Golden Fleece was one of the toughest challenges imaginable. I could hardly refuse, however. I didn’t want to look like a wimp."

The female characters fall a little flat, and the prevalence of rape and violence (without the kind of framing we expect in the 21st century) makes this a tough sell for classroom use. I think a novelist (not a classics professor) can (and has) done this concept better, but I also think there's room for all storytellers.

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to review a digital ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

A great way to introduce teenagers (or even just interested adults) to the magical world of Greek Mythology.

Over 30 figures are explained in a few pages. Everything is very easy to read and is almost like a mini autobiography - each is "narrated" by the character involved. There is plenty of humour as they share their plight with you!

The author shows that there are many versions of these myths - some vary over time and others from area to area, so there is no true, definitive version.

I hated leaving all these well-loved and well-known figure to venture back to reality!

The tales of Greek mythology are legend and have different interpretations depending on the writer at the time. What Garland has done is to try to write a very accessible introduction to these tales. The stories are often in the first person and with a very modern inflexion which makes the stories easy to read. Each is short and succinct. This is an idiosyncratic approach which may horrify purists but also bring a wider readership.

Greek Mythology, Gods and Heroes Brought to Life – by Robert Garland is an easy to read piece that tells the incredible stories of around 40 characters from Greek Mythology. The author very neatly presents stories for each character, each tidily packaged into 4 or 5 pages, it’s very easy to read and like some authors I have read recently on this subject (such as Stephen Fry), there is a good dollop of humour. There is something about these characters that does engender a humorous perspective and I did have the odd chuckle and snort.

There is no escaping the amount of enjoyment these characters and their stories are providing me, the more I read the same stories, by different sources, the more enjoyable they become. Perhaps a bit like a 5-year-old wanting his or her Mum and Dad to read Three Little Pigs or Goldilocks and the Three Bears for the 1000th time.

The author makes the point in his introduction that Greek Mythology is not equivalent to the Bible or the Qur’an or the Hindu Bhagavad Gita in the respect of not being as sacred (perhaps back in the day they were though – ‘my words’). For example, the incorrigible Zeus doesn’t have the same religious significance to Greeks as Jesus for Christians. But to re-iterate the point, I am sure these Gods were VERY sacred back in antiquity, you just need to read the importance the Greeks and Romans placed on their Gods (e.g. Zeus/Greeks, Jupiter/Romans) – the author clearly means, ‘contemporary’ sanctity.

Garland statess there are no standardised versions of these myths, they are stories. The sources are a ‘hotchpotch’ of highly unrepresentative writings over a period of well over a thousand years. Indeed, the small handful of authors I have read on this subject, such as McCullough, Fry and now Garland (and a handful of movies and TV series) – all seem to put their own spin on these stories.

Either way, these stories are great and getting better. The characters are also growing in my mind and seem to stay with me and drop into my mind throughout my day. Zeus sometimes says g'day, probably transformed into an E. coli under the microscope, Perseus hides behind a maiden hair fern with his shiny shield and scythe, Athena whispers into my ear as I’m walking Pup and Aphrodite, as a beautiful Sunbird, flits about the garden while I have my cuppa and ginger nut.

These characters endure.

Perseus is now probably my favourite – this will change no doubt. His bravery when confronting the petrifying Medusa is nothing short of heroic, he also shows incredible resourcefulness – under considerable pressure. I do have a soft spot for Zeus though. Oh, by the way, the author litters this book with cool, simple drawings of the characters and some of the dramas – it’s a nice touch.

Thank you, Mr Garland, – now back to reality.

4 Stars

This book is actually very nice. The idea to revisit Greek myths giving voice to the characters is very interesting. In this way the stories become more real and it is a great way to see them under a new light. Some of them are even very funny and full of sarcasm and this is very important because the characters look less like distant gods or heroes and more like people with something to tell. The only problem I had is that it reminded me so much of Mythos (and Heroes) by Stephen Fry that I couldn’t avoid making comparisons between the two and I found Fry’s style a bit more vivid.

This book is a masterpiece. A real introduction into Greek mythology for beginners. Loved this book so much.

Despite loving Greek Mythology and having read many different books throughout my life, this one just didn't hit me the same way. I didn't really enjoy the writing style and the illustrations are a horror show. The original myths are filled with misogyny, victim blaming rape and other horrible acts that don't fit with modern values. While retelling these faithfully, the manner and the language chosen indicates the modern equivalent of those older values slipping through. The stories told from women's perspectives sound like a man writing a woman. Would Artemis really describe herself constantly in such hostile language?

Subtitle: Gods and Heroes Brought to Life

I received an advance reader copy of this book from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

This book tells stories from Greek mythology in the first person POV of Greek gods and other characters. The execution of this approach didn’t work that well for me, as the character voices didn’t seem to differ that much from one character to the next.


I only made it about 80% of the way through this book. I gave up during the section about Odysseus, the Trojan War, and the Odyssey. The POV shifted so frequently and without any signaling of a POV change that it was tough to process.

I gave Greek Mythology three stars. It probably didn’t help that the previous book I read was from Rick Riordan’s Trials of Apollo series, and Riordan is one of the best in the business at giving voice to multiple characters and interpreting myths for modern audiences.

Robert Garland promises something really interesting regarding the format of this story collections, the stories are to be told by the gods and heroes themselves. In an attempt to, in my opinion, showcase how connected most of these people are, each new point of view corresponds to the last person mentioned in the previous point of view. In theory, this writing premise looked like a great idea, an interesting way to transition between stories and character and a way to keep the cohesion of the book. However, it played in a surprisingly different way.

The writing feels like something close to "the office" format, or what some tv reality shows do when they let people talk in front of a camera about the drama that happened that same day. This is written as short paragraphs superficially describing the biggest myths of each character, there isn't any new intake or new exploration of themes in them, and for something that got promoted for being a 1st person account of the Gods' and heroes stories, you barely see their own opinions about the things that they do, there is no interpersonal nor intrapersonal new intake. Which was one of the things that I was looking for. The decision to make this collection from the point of view of the gods was to get a "behind the scenes" from them, but no. Not even the transitions between chapters seemed natural, the person would mention another characters name in the las 2 lines, not smoothly, and then we change character, and the story repeats.

One more thing I'd like to address, the way that the characters tell their stories it's something I'd expect from books meant for a younger audience, and that would not be a problem at all if it wasn't for the explicit mentions of the previous Trigger Warning contents, so it is fair to assume that the target audience should be older than what the writing makes you think.

Having had an interest in Greek Mythology from a young age, I was intrigued to read retellings of the stories from the Gods, Goddesses and Heroes perspectives rather than from an outside point of view. In 200 pages, the author covers 39 of the most well knows figures from Greek Myths and puts a fun, snarky spin on the. He also reveals the emotions of the characters throughout and hearing it coming from the horse's mouth was interesting. Although for me there is nothing new to be learned from this book, I feel it would be a great read for someone with no knowledge of Greek Myths as it is both informative and entertaining but it is also engaging in the way the tales are told and written.

The lively, pithy writing brings the characters to life and the quirky illustrations are a great addition to the narrative. I am the first to admit that Greek Myths can be rather dry but this lighthearted romp is both memorable and eminently readable. The first person narrative and the fact that the Gods and Heroes featured just came out with what they were thinking was a stroke of genius. It's very much a refreshingly original take on renowned myths and an amusing read that is well worth your time if you're a fan of Greek Myths. Garland manages to simultaneously keep elements of the old whilst also bringing the stories up to date. Highly recommended.

Whatabout I tell you some old Greek stories?

In just over 200 pages the author rushes through all the main myths in the ancient Greek canon. This work is very different from Robert Garland’s more scholarly publications. It is a real attempt to popularize mythology for a new audience who may be entirely unfamiliar with the stories. He adopts a novel approach, allowing the gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, all to tell their own tales. Aside from the fact that they all adopt pretty much the same voice, folksy and slangy (‘same old, same old’; ‘long story short’; ‘what a pillock’), the idea works quite well, although it does deprive the myths of all the traditional majesty associated with them.

These are not really gods to fear, the written style is far too colloquial and jokey. That is rather a pity, as many of these stories are the subject of Greek tragedy and carry all the elements needed to inspire empathy and terror. Not so here; accompanied by quirky line drawings by the author himself, the narrative races from one tale to the next, hardly pausing for breath. Among the best is when he makes most use of the ancient source, closely following, for example, Sophocles’ Antigone, or parts of Homer’s Iliad.

It should perhaps be said, that despite the light-hearted narrative, this is not a book for children. It contains what is normally termed adult language and themes.

Having said all that, the stories speak for themselves and across the centuries. They never bore.

This book is so much fun. I can't even think of it without laughing to myself. Told from the point of view of various gods and characters, "Greek Mythology" gives an interesting (and fun... Did I say fun already?!) perspective to the myths. It is brilliantly written, and I would recommend it for absolutely anyone over the age of 18. I think I'm going to go now and read this again!

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

I have always been a lover of Greek Mythology and this book did not disappoint. Any lover of mythology will most likely already know the classics but having them retold in the point of view of the Gods/Godesses/Demi-Gods point of views was a point of genius in my opinion.