I absolutely loved this. medusa has been one of my favourite greek mythological figures for a long time (I even have a tattoo of her), so to be able to read a retelling of her story was so wonderful. Natalie Haynes is so so gifted in weaving together the perspectives of so many characters to build a full picture, without it ever feeling confusing or over complicated. she brilliantly shows the way that women have been misrepresented, how their stories have been pushed to the side to make way for the traditional, male ‘heroes’, and she does so with wry humour and intelligence.

I loved reading this, a Greek myth re-telling not only written from a female perspective, but one that is refreshingly vitriolic in the description of the classic “hero” Perseus. The relationship between the Gorgon sisters was wonderful and reinforced the point that it is men who have historically decided who is a hero and who is a monster. The chapters from different perspectives interwove perfectly to create the epic feel, and while the subject matter was tragic at times Haynes’ wit shone through with her irreverent portrayal of the Olympians.

‘Stone Blind’ is a retelling of the tale of Medusa - the Greek mythology tale of the girl with snakes for hair and the ability to turn you into stone with a single glance. Haynes attempts to spin her tale in a new light, with multiple perspectives from each character involved in her well-told tale.

~

I was really disappointed by this to be honest. I’m a huge fan of Greek mythology re-tellings, having read several in the past year - I eagerly anticipated this. But it just felt clunky, awkward and tricky to keep up with - for a story centred around Medusa, it felt as though she had hardly any page time. It seemed to be everybody else’s story but hers, and even the other tales that were being told were incredibly difficult to keep up with due to the sheer volume of them.

Additionally, the dialogue really let the novel down. In an attempt to make Classics accessible to a Young Adult audience, the Greek gods essentially speak like modern day teenagers - it really took you out of the story and the setting.

Thanks to NetGalley and the team at Macmillan for the ARC.

Full review will be posted soonish and I'll add links to blog as well.

I would like to thank the publisher and netgalley for providing me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Excellent read, so gripping I couldn't put it down. I love this kind of historical fiction!

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy in exchange for my honest feedback.

— 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 —

𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: Stone Blind
𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬: N/A
𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫(𝐬): Natalie Haynes
𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Mythology
𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝: 15th September 2022
𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 4.5/5

TW: Rape, sexual assault, murder

”Men will tell you that Gorgons are monsters, but men are fools. They cannot comprehend any beauty beyond what they can see. And what they see is a tiny part of what there is.”

This feminist retelling of Medusa shows us that Medusa, the infamous Gorgon, was never the evil that typical mythology portrays her as. In fact, she was more girl than monster. Also, what is a monster, anyway? Something that people deem as ‘scary’ because they don’t understand the way something looks?

I can’t get over how gut-wrenchingly heart-breaking this was. This story has the ability to touch a soul and it did exactly that with mine, and squeezed.

I enjoyed the writing immensely, there were points of view that I didn’t expect, there was lots of humour, and literally all of it was incredibly engaging. I’ve had Natalie Haynes books on my wish list for years and now I’m desperate to read more.

This is just one of those books that make you feel so strongly and really see how much devastation and destruction was caused at the whims of the Gods. I wish I could stab Poseidon with his own trident, I wish I could chop off Perseus’ head. Most of all, I wish women didn’t have to relate to this story so strongly.

🧚🏻‍♀️

Medusa is dead, I am dead. But I'm still the best narrator for this part of the story, because I was there for all of it, and because I am not a lying deceitful hateful vicious murderer. [loc. 2567]
This novel is subtitled 'Medusa's Story', but at first it seems like a complex interweaving of the stories of wronged women from Greek mythology: Zeus' first wife Metis; Andromeda, staked out as a sacrifice to Poseidon; Danaë imprisoned in the dark; Hera and Amphitrite, wronged wives. (Hera, 'a goddess with an almost limitless supply of spite, could barely keep up with the number of women, goddesses, nymphs and mewling infants she needed to persecute'. [loc. 77]) Yet it all circles back to Medusa's story, and the implacable hatred of Athene -- 'vengeful and cruel, always blaming women for what men do to them' [loc. 1209] -- whose curse transforms Medusa after Poseidon rapes her in Athene's temple. Does Athene make Medusa into a monster, though? Is Medusa truly the hideous, unlovable horror sought by Perseus? The great hero is an unlikeable and incompetent teenager in this account, constantly whining to Athene and Hermes about the appalling hardships of his quest for a Gorgon's head. Athene does not have much time for him, and in this one thing I am wholly in agreement with her.

It's not all grim. The love between mortal Medusa and her immortal Gorgon sisters, Euryale and Sthenno, is deep and heartfelt: it's the opposite of monstrosity, the epithet levelled at the Gorgons by both Poseidon and Perseus. Hermes, one of the few male characters who behaves decently in the pages of Stone Blind, asks of Perseus 'who are you to decide who is a monster?'. And Medusa tells Poseidon that beauty is more than skin-deep: she sees it in the loving care of her sisters, and she submits to Poseidon to save a (more) mortal girl.

Haynes plays with voices here: it's not only Medusa's story, but a multitude of voices making a mosaic of misogyny, abuse, privilege and trickery. There are chapters told from choruses of entities: a bickering slither of snakes, an olive grove, the Hespereides. There are so many wronged women, their voices distinct but their experiences alike. I'd love to hear this read aloud, as a dramatic performance... One voice is absent: Medusa's mother Ceto, who dwells in the depths of the ocean. But Haynes weaves her into the story, in a way that is both tragic and elegant.

So many connections I hadn't recognised: so many commonalities of experience. Stone Blind isn't always an easy read, but it is a rewarding one: I am reminded that I have several of Haynes' other mythology-based novels, and am encouraged to read them sooner rather than later.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy. UK publication date is 15 SEP 2022, and there's a virtual launch at the British Library.

"There is one question that devours me still. Why didn’t I close my eyes?"

This is one of the best myth retellings I've ever read. It's like a tapestry, intricately weaving multiple voices together, giving a story I thought I knew well a fresh perspective. However, it should be noted that Medusa's is not the main perspective! This book really centers on Athene and the other women that suffered at the hands of Perseus.

Stone Blind is beautifully descriptive with fully-realized characters. I would recommend this book for those that already have some knowledge of the Greek myths, or those that are happy to do some research along the way.

I love retellings and one of my favourite myths to read retellings of is Medusa and so I loved this book. It is well written with a fantastic storyline and well developed characters that felt like they were jumping off the page and playing out the story right in front of my eyes. I loved it.

Wow… I’ve enjoyed Natalie Haynes’ previous novels but this was easily her best work yet IMO. I loved the different narrators and their differing perspectives on a tale I thought I knew well. My personal favourite was the persona given to the gorgoniad. ‘Her’ pithy disparaging comments regarding Perseus made me laugh out loud. The authors wonderful descriptions wove all the narrative strands together brilliantly. I couldn’t put it down and was so sad when it ended. Such a brilliant read. Ty netgalley my book of the year so far.

Medusa was thrice wronged: raped by Neptune, very unfairly punished for it by Athena, and then known throughout history as the snake-headed, stone-turning monster. It’s about time someone put the story straight.

Such is the premise of this book, that Medusa will finally get a fair say. And while there is a strong thread of that in the book, it’s also a bit on the meandering side, I thought. We get Perseus’s back story – told from the Gorgon’s point of view, so he’s no hero but a snivelling bratty teenager. We hear Andromeda’s tale, too, she who was chained to a rock to be sacrificed to the Kraken. And a whole pantheon of Greek gods, each more childish and petulant than the last.

Yes, Medusa has every reason and right to hate this lot, but boy does it make for a bit of a slog reading about all of these highly unpleasant characters.

Which feels so unfair on the book, which is written superbly, cutting back and forth between some omniscient narrator, and alternating sections done from varying points of view with excellently unique voices – one is cutting back and forth between Medusa’s snakes, for instance, or choruses of minor goddesses having their gossipy say-so. I liked these the best, the sections that were more ‘human’ in the telling, whether it was self-righteous indignation that so-and-so did that, or the hot fury of Medusa on her own fate.

I did wonder if we were supposed to already be more engrossed with Greek myth than some of my sketchy (okay, 90% based on Clash of the Titans!) recollections. Or, it’s just that with so much crammed in, there’s little to get too much focus. Medusa’s own tale is the exception, as is right: she’s very humanised and a tragic figure, as deserved. The gods were d*cks, and that is spelled out extremely clearly. But some of the in-between is a little high-level, overview kind of retelling of the bits I knew best, albeit it with a bitter, dismissive tone.

Overall, then: I did like this book, but it remained a little distant and chill for me. I never quite felt as engrossed in the story as I wanted, and there was a lot more satellite story than I was expecting. Yes, it ties all of these myths together well, but… I dunno, maybe I just expected more Gorgon when really there isn’t more story to tell – or, any more way to give her more ownership of her own story. It’s a tragedy, and that can be hard to read.

I wish it had grabbed me just a little more, but I don’t regret giving this a go.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced copy in return for an honest review.

I really enjoyed the retelling of Medusa’s story. This book is well written, captivating and entertaining. Despite the themes of violence and sexual assault this is told in a tongue in cheek manner that captures the humour of Greek myths excellently.
It is told from many povs and I feel that at some points we loose track of Medusa and it becomes a more generalised Greek retelling but this does not necessarily make it any less enjoyable.
I’m keen to read more by Natalie Haynes and continue to work my way through other Greek retellings!

I didn't find this quite as outstanding as 'A Thousand Ships' (which is utterly marvellous) but the ATS has a specific narrative to be working with/against. I did enjoy it hugely, and will definitely reread. Recommend.

Given I was a big fan of Natalie Haynes' previous book, A Thousand Ships and given I'm partial to reads like Elektra, Circe, The Silence of the Girls and other recent retellings of Greek myths from a feminist (or at least female) perspective, this book was exactly what I needed. As with those other titles, this was never going to be a "happy" read. The mortals, demi-gods and other gods are all at the mercy of those more powerful gods, who tend to be fickle and often downright unlikeable. Readers should go into this knowing there are strong themes of violence against women and sexual assault.

Whist most art focuses on Perseus having defeated Medusa and holding her head up in conquest, the statue I like most is Bernini's bust of Medusa, which depicts her in "life", albeit in marble so already ironically made of stone herself. The reason I like that piece so much is because it's so rare that SHE is the focus. On that point, my one criticism here is that I would have liked the focus of this story to be solely on Medusa, rather than swinging us to other female characters. Keep the gaze trained as it were, directly on Medusa and allow us to look at her alone.

I would highly recommend this to fans of this genre and if you haven't read it already, I would start with the author's previous work, which I have recommended to many people.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publishers and the author for a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this reworking of the Medusa story which begins with Medusa as a baby, abandoned and found by two Gorgon sisters. It challenges our (and Perseus'!) notion of what makes a monster - is it a word we use for something simply different from us?

Medusa emerges as a loving and sympathetic young woman; meanwhile the petulant and childish gods squabble amongst themselves, play with human lives whilst despising and being puzzled by them. Zeus asserts himself as King of the gods, whilst being also rather cowed by his wife Hera and several other myths are woven into the story - like the birth of Aphrodite. A sardonic narrator fills in gaps for us and the whole thing is very funny, whilst also being quite sad. Definitely recommended.

I was beyond excited for this book, and surely I could see Natalie Haynes' trademark wit all over the pages. However, it didn't quite meet the extremely high bar she has set herself previously.

Stone Blind was supposed to be the story of how a young woman became a monster and how she was never really a monster at all. It should have been Medusa’s story, but, in a lot of ways, it wasn't really hers. I normally enjoy books with multiple POVS, but in this case I felt robbed.

Nevertheless, I felt most compelled when reading about Medusa and her sisters. Stheno and Euryale are beautifully portrayed, and I adored every scene they were in. Quite remarkably, they're the first characters to introduce the concept of beauty and monstrosity as learned behavior - a recurring theme throughout the book which never tires to show how ideas of what is monstrous are culturally conditioned, predicated on fear of the unknown.
Sadly, they're also the only ones to prove that it can be unlearned too.

This is another wonderful book from the fantastic Natalie Haynes about the lives and loves of the Greek Gods. Although this one is primarily about Medusa's story there is plenty about many other Gods and Demi-Gods and the mortal who become entangled in their shenanigans. An engrossing and highly entertaining soap opera of a read with some brilliant wry witty moments, particularly when Hera is involved. Highly recommended.

This is another Medusa retelling that I needed. I read this book so quickly!!
I felt so much for Medusa and her sisters and Medusas horrible murder by Perseus. Natalie Haynes has done it again where the heroes and typical villains are turned on it’s head.
Medusas story always makes me feel so much- the absolute horror and pain I feel for Medusa and my sheer anger and frustration at Athene and Perseus.

Noooo! I so wanted to love this.

The issue for me is that this is not Medusa’s story. This is the story OF Medusa, reincarnated in modern language with some imaginative embellishments and only a smidge more sympathy for the titular character than the original Greek myth affords.

This title is mentioned in the same breath as any antecedent in the recent retelling renaissance, most notably Circe. But what Miller achieved was exactly what this failed to do: Circe did not fall into the tradition that it was clearly aiming to subvert. What I mean by this is that Miller committed entirely to Circe’s perspective; it was HER story, and hers only. Medusa appears in Stone Blind as something as a minor character, and in the brief interludes we are privy to her perspective, she doesn’t have much agency or complexity. I’d go so far as to say that the main character, really, was Athene – who, if you know how the myth goes, isn’t a character you want to spend much time with.

I have a great deal of respect for what this set out to do, in terms of reinstating another the female figure of myth who has been (effectively) demonised for literally millennia now. Sadly, it just did not deliver.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this eARC of 'Stone Blind' by Natalie Haynes.

Natalie Haynes is a talent. She didn't shy away from the original myths and her writing style shines through in this whole story. 'Stone Blind' is a perfect Mythology books, up there with the greats - Pat Barker and Stephen Fry.