Rating: 5/5
Spoiler Alert! Sure, this book is about the Trojan War. Yes, the one that happened in the 11th-12th century. BC.
But you're still getting a spoiler alert because this is something totally new.
A Thousand Ships is truly stunning. At first I was just happy to have the opportunity to read another Greek retelling from a female point of view (shout out to Madeline Miller's Circe) but Haynes goes so much further than I thought she could. Not only does this version of events give the story more context, adding the role of the God's to the story, but it honours all the women lost to war. Frequently, I found myself comparing the situation of the women in this book to all the hundreds of thousands of women who find themselves in war every day and continue to find reasons to survive, reasons to love.
This book is breathtaking.
Despite the entire focus being the Trojan war, A Thousand Ships never once left me uninterested in someone's story. It jumps around a little when it comes to chronology which really adds to the feeling of being with the Trojan women right after their city has fallen. We return to them on the beach several times, in between the stories of other women, and you become a part of that group as you piece together the fate of all the Greek and Trojan women around you.
The true secret to why this book is so engaging, however, is the way it brings together Gods and mortals. The story of Troy can't be told without including the Gods - Apollo plays a pretty heavy role after all. But Haynes places the Gods directly alongside the mortal women, displays their shortcomings and their pettiness (my favourite thing about the Greek gods!) just as she does that of the mortal women. Gods and mortals alike are culpable for the atrocities that happen in war. Changing between the two arenas meant you could see the way they impacted on each other, that the story was so much more than the affair of Paris and Helen but a whole sequence of jealous rivalry, balance, and the inability to take responsibility.
There's just something about Greek retellings. They're so good. I've always loved myths, and the Greek (or Roman!) gods are such a fascinating topic. The poetry that surrounds their stories offers authors the opportunity to do great things with the narratives themselves. Which is exactly what Haynes has done. She's retold the story and offered something more.
There's a real vulnerability to A Thousand Ships which I hadn't expected. Death is, inevitably, a central theme in the book but it's not a book about death. It's about love, and loss, and vulnerability. It honours the women that are never spoken about, giving them a voice they never had at the time.
Go read this book, and give a thought to the women that history has forgotten.