If you liked
Books like The Song of Achilles
by Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles is the novel that opened the contemporary feminist mythic re-telling subgenre. Madeline Miller, a classicist, took the textual evidence the standard Homeric tradition has been actively suppressing for two thousand years and rendered the Patroclus-Achilles relationship the Iliad obviously is about. If you finished it and needed another book in the same register, these are the read-alikes our editors recommend most.
The shortlist
What to read next
Circeby Madeline Miller
“Circe by Madeline Miller 2018 review. The witch-goddess of the Odyssey narrates her own life. Miller's second novel and the canonical contemporary feminist mythic re-telling.”
Pachinkoby Min Jin Lee
“Pachinko by Min Jin Lee 2017 review. Four generations of a Korean family in twentieth-century Japan, beginning with Sunja's pregnancy by a married Korean gangster in 1933 Busan. The Apple TV+ adaptation source and one of the canonical contemporary Korean-American literary novels.”
Belovedby Toni Morrison
“Beloved by Toni Morrison 1987 review. Sethe, a former slave living in Reconstruction-era Ohio, is haunted by the daughter she killed to save from slavery. Pulitzer Prize 1988 and one of the canonical American novels of the late twentieth century.”
Jamesby Percival Everett
“James by Percival Everett 2024 review. A retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the enslaved man Jim, in his own voice. The most important American novel of 2024 and the right Everett entry point.”
Hamnetby Maggie O'Farrell
“Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell 2020 review. The death of William Shakespeare's eleven-year-old son and the four years before Hamlet is written. The Women's Prize winning novel about marriage, grief, and the play that came out of it.”
The Goldfinchby Donna Tartt
“The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt 2013 review. Theo Decker, thirteen, survives a Metropolitan Museum bombing that kills his mother and ends up with a stolen painting that defines the next decade of his life. Pulitzer Prize 2014.”
FAQ
Common questions about The Song of Achilles read-alikes
- Should I read Circe next?
- Yes. Same author, same mythic register, more mature in pacing and ambition. Most readers find Circe a slightly harder entry point than Song of Achilles, which is why we usually recommend Achilles first.
- I want another book that retells a classic.
- James (Percival Everett retells Huck Finn). Hamnet (Maggie O'Farrell takes the Hamlet backstory). Beloved (Toni Morrison rewrites what historical fiction is allowed to do). All three are doing related literary work.
- I want more mythic retellings specifically.
- The catalog is still building in this subgenre. Pat Barker (The Silence of the Girls, The Women of Troy), Natalie Haynes (A Thousand Ships, Stone Blind), and Jennifer Saint (Ariadne, Elektra) are the canonical contemporary mythic-retelling authors. None are reviewed here yet but every library has them.
- I want the same kind of patient prose.
- Pachinko has the same patient multi-decade scope. The Goldfinch is the maximalist version of what Miller does in miniature.
The original