No Friend to This House: A Novel

Jason and the Argonouts told from a feminist perspective. Compelling story, great characters, well written though the shift in narration from third to first person felt laboured at times.

I have read a number of Haynes' books at this point and I can say that she is reliably great. I think since the mania over The Song of Achilles (a deeply misogynist misrepresentation by the way, but that's a discussion for another time) there has been an insatiable thirst for Greek myth retellings among readers. A Thousand Ships was a triumphant counteroffer to that thirst, righting the ship of the conversation with better accuracy and consideration. Haynes typically ignores the impulse to scrub the original stories of their uncomfortable, less palatable moments, and this is to her credit. After reading Pandora's Jar and listening to her podcast episode about Medea, I was very excited to read this book. Her Medea chapter in Pandora's Jar is my favorite in a book full of excellent and informative chapters. She has consistently acknowledged, in the past, that Medea is unlike any other mortal woman in myth. She does things and is represented in ways typically only reserved for male heroes or even deities themselves. So, I was a bit disappointed when Medea's final "decision" (idk why I'm avoiding spoilers, you've had like 1000+ years to read the original) was presented like a no-brainer, so cleanly, like she was just a mother with no better choice, I was a tad disappointed. I understand the instinct to protect the protagonist in the eyes of the reader, but I think there was a way to do that while preserving Medea in all her magical, blood-soaked, revenge-seeking glory. Why does she HAVE TO be doing the right thing? Why can't she be as petty and violent as her male counterparts have always been? Regardless, I very much enjoyed the book. Like I said at the beginning, Haynes is reliably great and always entertaining. Her expertise on the entire journey of the Argo is made abundantly clear in the way she pulls female characters from near obscurity to the forefront of the readers view. This has always been one of her greatest strengths as an author. My handful of run-on sentences about one qualm should absolutely not dissuade any reader from taking on her version of one of the most interesting Greek myths.