Let’s start with I’ve tried to write this review for over a week now, but every time I pick up the book, look at quotes, I am reduced to tears. In the words of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, “I am bewitched me body and soul” ~ P&P 2005

I have never been so heartbroken over a book before. Yes, I’ve cried, but upset and even stopped reading a book once because I was getting to emotional, but The Song of Achilles was so different.

I’ve been a advent reader of greek mythology for a long time, and Achilles has always been one of my favorites. Meaning I know how his story ended. Though this book went into more details, it added part of Achilles that we never got to see before. Madeline gave Achilles a heart, in the form of Patroclus. 

The story is told from Patroclus life, from a toddler to even after his death. We should Achilles through the eyes of the person that loved him most, and it is the most beautiful thing in the world. We see Patroclus go from hating Achilles to loving the male with all his might.

“I saw then how I had changed. I did not mind anymore that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? It was enough to watch him win, to see the soles of his feet flashing as they kicked up sand, or the rise and fall of his shoulders as he pulled through the salt. It was enough.”

There are so many beautiful passages in this book. The above speaks to me, who doesn’t want to feel what Patroclus is feeling. He is just happy, so in love that he didn’t care about petty things like winning. He felt like he was winning just be being with Achilles.

“This is what Achilles will feel like when he is old. And then I remembered: he will never be old.”

Reading that sentence was the first time I cried while reading the story. It was a lump in my throat, or a tear or two. I broke down and felt in my soul what  Patroclus was feeling

As we watch them grow and become into the people we know them as in history it became harder to read. I knew all their happiness and all their joy would end on that day in battle. Yet Madeline Miller made me still want to read, still root for their love.

“The last thing I think is: Achilles.”

Nothing is as heartbreaking as Patroclus final thought being Achilles.

I’ve cried a lot writing this, it was hard and still is hard to express my feelings and love for this story. I think to the core, I want what they had. It was beautiful, and yes it ended, but they were both happy to have it, to have each other. I think they both would do it all over again, just to fall for each other, and I want something so beautiful.

“He was watching me, his eyes as deep as earth. "Will you come with me?" he asked. The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death. "Yes," I whispered. "Yes.”

The above quote sums of Patroclus love for Achilles and how much Achilles needed him by his side, to the very end. 

Even in the end, Achilles mother knew that they needed to be together. That they both deserved it.

“I have done it,” she says. At first I do not understand. But then I see the tomb, and the marks she has made on the stone. ACHILLES, it reads. And beside it, PATROCLUS. “Go,” she says. “He waits for you.”

She spent the whole book trying to keep them apart, and I think it is beautiful that it was her who reunited them.

“In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.”