I love a myth retelling and this book was simply stunning! Writing was beautifully done, and had me hooked

I’m obsessed with all things mythology related and Greek mythology is my favourite so I was excited to read this fascinating look at the goddesses of Greek myth. I’m also a huge fan of Natalie Haynes - whose wit and evident passion for the classics shines through on every page. I am pretty familiar with the goddesses featured in Divine Might, but I found Haynes analysis of their stories and the ways that those stories have been told and reinterpreted over the years revelatory and utterly compelling. She is excellent at providing context and insight about the ways in which stories of goddesses still have resonance in our modern society. Furthermore, these stories don’t just tell us about the way gods and goddesses were perceived by the ancient world but also tell us about the way women’s roles and status have been tied into these portrayals. Divine Might is engaging, smart whilst still remaining accessible, passionate and fiercely feminist. I very much enjoyed it and would also highly recommend the audiobook version, read with wit and humour by the author herself.

I’m a huge fan of mythology and I’ve read a few books by Natalie Haynes so know I enjoy her style of writing.

This is about the female goddesses of Greek mythology, there is an expectation that you already have a bit of background knowledge of them.

Well told and interesting!

A retelling of a popular Greek myth. I find this subject really interesting and have read a few books recently of the style but I found this one a little difficult to get into. I feel like I maybe need to come back to it with a break from Greek mythology. I have read others by this author and greatly enjoyed them so this might be one to come back to later for me.

I'm a big fan of mythology, both retellings and 'non-fiction' books, so I was very excited to read this one. The market is really saturated with Greek mythology retellings and, feminist ones particularly, but I'm always excited to read about the Goddesses. It was my first by this author, so I was unfamiliar with her writing style.

Divine Might has a good mix of the well known and well covered Goddesses (Hera, Athene, Aphrodite, Artemis) and the ones we don't see as much (Demeter, the Muses, Hestia, and the Furies).

It's written in a really accessible and engaging way, it's a great book if you're dipping your first toes into Greek Mythology. For those of us that are in a little deeper, it does feel a little simplistic at times.
It was a bit unfocussed at times and goes off on a lot of tangents. For example, in the chapter about the Muses there are several pages that are a critique of the movie Xanadu that doesn't really provide much useful or interesting narrative to the chapter. As someone who has ADHD, I get it - I often feel the need to go off on ten different tangents to try and get my point across, but I don't have an editor for my day to day conversations (much to my loved ones dismay, I'm sure).

It was nice to have a chapter on Hestia, as there's not a lot of information about her out there. However, because of that, a lot of the chapter was filler and that was quite obvious. The lack of information isn't the author's fault, the source material just isn't there, but I think a short chapter explaining why there's not much information and sharing what we do know would have been much better.

I really liked how the author shares information from different sources, including the Roman versions of the myths, and highlights where they differ and shared the different versions. Quite often, this types of books tend to meld them all together but it's nice to see them separated out.

Despite the criticisms I have shared, I genuinely enjoyed this book and would recommend it - especially to those new to Greek Mythology.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my advanced review copy.

This book is perfect! I absolutely loved it!
An exploration of the women in Greek Mythology, who they really were, what they felt and how the men in the stories influenced how we have always seen these women.
Really well researched, including details of works of art, story-telling and Ancient Greek society this book is a must-read for anyone with an interest in The Gods and their stories.

I absolutely love Natalie Haynes - her writing is excellent and her podcasts ('Natalie Haynes Stands Up For The Classics') are both enlightening and witty. She can take some impossibly complex ideas and make them engaging, accessible and entertaining - this is exactly how I like my Classics and I just wish that my lecturers at university back in the mists of time had been half as funny when we looked at Homer!

This book focuses on a range of goddesses from Greek mythology, with each being given a chapter in which Haynes explores the source texts, discusses some of the anomalies in their presentation and perhaps why they have earned themselves a bad reputation or been overlooked. I found this particularly interesting in the case of Hera who is usually portrayed as Zeus's shrewish, vindictive and much-cheated on wife. I also liked the closer look at Hestia - my favourite of the Olympians - and why she deserves to be celebrated in her own right against her more glamorous/lethal/crazy siblings.

Along the way, there's lots of academic discussion and telling of the myths - some of which I knew, lots I didn't. What I love is that Natalie Haynes approaches it all with humour and makes it interesting - it's like having Classics explained to you by a lovely, funny but extremely knowledgeable friend. I should add that I also listened to the audiobook, read by Haynes herself, which added to this feeling - and made me giggle out loud a fair few times!

As with all Haynes' books, I'd wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone with even a tiny curiosity about the Classics - she will both educate and entertain you. Even for those with a pretty sound understanding of mythology, there's plenty to enjoy here.

This is a fascinating look into the world of Greek goddesses! With a sense of humour as well. There's so much to learn in this book!

Slightly different to her full-length retellings of mythological character, this is a deep dive into the stories of various goddesses such as Hera, Hestia and the Furies.

It's hard to fault Natalie Haynes - through her books and her radio show she's brought the classics to a modern audience in a way no-one else has managed. Divine Might is no exception - scholarly, insightful, yet never forgetting that these gods and demigods are based on human characteristics after all - so allowing room for all of their imperfections and flaws to show through. Great stuff

I always adore everything Natalie Haynes writes and her non-fiction especially! The way Haynes can weave a story whilst still giving a comprehensive and academic-level account of these myths is so engaging for a reader and draws you further in to devouring the pages. No ones writing inspires me quite like Natalie's!

natalie haynes is a staple in greek retellings and mythic stories at the moment. this one is a little different from her others in that it goes through the goddesses instead of more of a specific narrative. really enjoyed the writing and would read more

I recently read one of her other books and surprised myself by enjoying it. I enjoyed this too, and almost find myself liking Greek mythology!

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

I went into this book fairly blind, because all I needed to know was Natalie Haynes and Greek Mythology.

I loved Haynes’ tone and humour throughout the book. I enjoyed every chapter of this book and the insight it provided. I also thoroughly joined the links and comparisons to our modern society. My favourite essay was Hera, but realistically there wasn’t a single essay in this book that didn’t open my eyes, or reframe my thinking.

Did you know about Athena-Barbie? I learned something new!

A fun book dedicated to the women of mount Olympus. Their roles, actions and experiences as women in a male dominated world, but also their influence on and representation in modern pop-culture.
The text assumes a certain amount of knowledge about the Greek gods, but it is a wild (at times rambling) and fun ride.

Witty, erudite account of the classical female pantheion

I enjoyed this a lot, as Haynes packs in a wealth of information about Ancient Greek goddesses or demi-goddesses, also including their Roman adoptions, but does this with a sharp, pertinent touch laced with humour. Haynes is, unsurprisingly, also a comedian, and a broadcaster, as well as being a classicist and a feminist. In other words, she knows how to communicate, in lively, un-dry fashion and brings a female viewpoint to ancient history and myth.

I was, however, pulled back from the final star through a combination of just too much information and the lack of needed illustrations or picture plates. Haynes spends a lot of time carefully describing detail as given in lots of artwork, both from the distant past and the nearer present. These might be later paintings or sculptures and existing illustrations on damaged archaeological findings. She compares and contrasts many of these with others depicting the same subject matter. The problem is, unless one has, for example, simultaneous access to the internet and the possibility of image searches, as one reads, this detail is wearisome and not open to the reader’s possibly different interpretation of the described image. These plentiful sections, lacking even a single illustration, made the read sometimes a dry chore.

I did absolutely love Haynes’ bringing the influence of these ancient powerful females bang up to date in their representation in movies, comics and other popular culture manifestations

A more sober, and ultimately depressing realisation for me – and I assume for any reader, was the endless brutality and violence of the gods and goddesses, and their part in the bloody history of the classical period. Those gods and goddesses of course seem absolutely created in man’s, men’s images, horribly reflecting the shadow side of our psyches. Rape an absolute commonplace and one might almost think sanctioned in ‘reality’ given the endless rapes of mortal women by the gods themselves. Given where we are at this historical point, these vengeful, jealous, narcissistic ‘divinities’ seem to be well entrenched within us.

Only Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, seemed to embody kindness and greater understanding. Possibly Demeter, as her laying waste to the fruitfulness of the earth and visiting famine upon it, and therefore the absence of the eternal sacrifices and worship which all the other gods and goddesses craved, came because Hades had kidnapped and raped her daughter, Proserpina, and brutally confined her in the Underworld.

I liked this but could feel the author’s own bias coming through, sometimes at the expense of the actual mythology and history

An enjoyable collection of greek myth tales told from a fresh perspective. I always enjoy NH's writing style and find her work to be engaging

I am a big fan of Greek Mythology retold especially females in greek myth written by women,
I thoroughly enjoyed Natalie Haynes’s A Thousand Ships & Madeline Miller’s Circe so I jumped at the chance to read this! I was unaware that it is a non-fiction account of female figures in Greek Mythology so I was briefly confused to start. However it doesn’t fail to delight, it is an insightful & refreshing look at the Greek Goddesses, factual, accessible & extremely absorbing!

Fiercely feminist, this is another brilliant exploration of the women in Greek myth from Natalie Haynes, following on from Pandora's Jar, this is a brilliant read that I would recommend to anyone who has an interest in mythology. This was an exciting and insightful commentary on just a small selection of the greek goddesses, including those lesser known but equally as central to the ancient greek culture, such as Hestia and The Furies. I love how Hayes makes classics accessible and relates it to modern cultural examples and definitely feel that Haynes is my favourite modern classicist.