Customer Reviews

Troy

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The Iliad is enjoyable as a great work of ancient literature, but oft-neglected due to the fact that it's written in a distant and often difficult style. This book gives us a good insight into how people would have felt and seen things.

The war between Greece and Troy has been lasting years, and Troy is beginning to crumble under relentless pressure to win back the beautiful Helen.

The characters we know already, Paris and Helen and Hector and so forth, are shown from the viewpoints of servant girls, who have a tangle of loves and infatuations worthy of a high school soap. Marpessa is Helen's servant, and her sister Xanthe is Hector's son's nurse. Their anguishes and loves spin their courses as Troy collapses ever further, a situation including the famed wooden horse.

The gods appear, as they do in myth and legend, but only in brief spurts -- the humans are the ones we wish to see here. And it is these unknowns, the invented people that interest us for anyone with a passing knowledge of the Iliad will know the conclusion for Troy, for Paris, for Helen. But we don't know what will happen to Marpessa and Xanthe, and thus we care a great deal.

Marpessa and Xanthe are interesting characters, but I often felt that the focus shifted a little too far off them. That, and I got bored easily by the kitchen gossip — it was entertaining for a bit but got a little older later on. I also tended to get a little lost in the tangle of who-loves-who, where A loved B who is secretly in love with C, who got A pregnant.

One inevitable thing is that the writing style will be a bit off when one adapts a novel from an ancient poem. Often it seemed to sag or to lose something that could have made a scene sparkle. It was fairly sprightly throughout most of the book, but I felt that it was a bit "off" when the major events of the legend came together at the finale.

Overall, an enjoyable adaptation with a few awkward spots, but a nice read.

Contrary to popular belief, most people buy books about Troy to read (no kidding!) about Troy! Never would have guessed, would you?

This book (a bestseller ENTITLED Troy), however, is determined to add something more:

TEENAGERS AND THEIR SORDID LOVE LIVES!

While the battle rages outside Troy's walls, the two protagonists, sisters Marpessa and Xanthe, obsess, cry, yell, and catfight over a boy (beautiful Alastor who spent all of five seconds in battle before getting wounded)!

Instead of a fierce ten-year battleground, the city of Troy becomes an attractive backdrop for a teenage soap opera. And instead of the epic this tale should have been, readers are left with girl fights, premarital sex, and (of course) unwanted pregnancies!

Might as well watch it on TV!

Although this book is good and interesting, some of the things could have been better
First of all, even though the book is set in Troy and tells the basic story, it is mainly about the feautered sisters and thier love life. Also, the ending is rather vauge.
I would still get this book, but I would recomend Inside The Walls of Troy instead. It is much more about Troy and its story.

Upon first seeing this book in my local bookstore, I immediatly picked it up and began to read the blurb. It seemed intriguing so I read the first couple pages. I did not want to buy it in hardcover, because I knew it would not take me long to read. When it came out in paperback, I thusly bought it and began to read. The story moved along at a good pace, but it was very dry. The book won all these prestigious awards, but I thought it wasn't much of a representation of Troy. I have been fascinated by the Greeks and their mythology for many years, and although this was seemingly accurate, it lacked meat. It seemed like it was more of a textbook than a novel. The characters, although well developed, did not seem very emotional. The times when a speech rang of vengeance, I was somewhat appalled, they seemed so pathetic and juvenile. These supposed "speeches" were melodramatic and seemed like the author was trying to create an aura of emotion but didn't know how to write. Ms. Geras created a good background, but I felt like the ending was very weak and the book was very dry for such an amazing story. Not to say that the book was necessarily horrible, but I had much higher expectations and was sorely disappointed.

Remember that movie from a few years ago with the same title? Remember how much it sucked because sanitized the legend and took out all the gods? Well, here's a novel for us true lovers of "The Iliad" and Greek Mythology. Told beautifully (though sometimes meanderingly) from the perspective of the Trojans, most particularly the women, is the fall of Troy. The women stand perfectly for Troy, a city at the mercy of the masculine forces of the war. The women will be the only survivors of Troy, and they will be the ones that lose their loved ones after years of starvation and sacrifice. It is the women that survive to grieve. The book is perfectly faithful to the original work, complete with the meddling gods (beautifully described in poetic imagry), particularly Troy's patron goddess, Aphrodite, who complicates the lives of three women and two men, by creating yet another juicy and mythological soap opera. The characters are well-drawn, and the action--though told second-hand (as is fitting)--is emotionally powerful. Grade: A-

This book was okay.
I believe that the book would have been more interesting if the author would have talked more about the war and less about all the love. I believe this book did not have enough description where it counted and too much were it didn;t. In the whole book, they only mentioned the war at the end, when Hector was killed;one paragraph, and when Paris was killed. That was it.
The book was ok. could have been better.

This isn't the greatest review, sorry lol. But I just wanted to mention that this is one of my favorite books of all time. I must have read it five times since I first read it about seven years ago. I love it for it's beautiful lyrical quality and the subject matter. Who doesn't love a good retelling the fall of Troy. So romantic and yet not entirely about the romance. It melds the mystic with the historical and with a surprising realism. It was definitely refreshing for me throughout the years of shallow, pure paranormal romance young adult novels. I recommend :)

This book was amazing! It totally shed new light onto the Trojan War. It was awesome because it's like reading a soap opera, and yet it's historical fiction, so there is some truth to everything. This book is a better way to learn history; more kids would want to learn if every historical event was put into historical fiction like this book was. Troy made the Trojan War real, and made it interesting, instead of reading the entire lIlliad. Even though it is for more mature people due to some explicit parts, Troy is a "two-thumbs up" kind of book!

Xanthe, an adolescent living in the city of Troy, is struggling to find herself as the war rages on and on outside the walls. Join her and those around her as they live their lives in the final days of Troy.

The book, Troy: a novel, written by Adele Geras is a romantic war story about the life inside Troy before the great city crumbled. Opposite the Iliad, it shows the war of Troy from the perspective of the Trojans. It shows "the other side of the story". It will take you in and will not let you go until you have read every last word. I give it a perfect ten and if you're going to read any book, make it Troy: a novel. Perfect for reading over and over again. An epic story, an instant classic, and a best seller for young adults.

DM

This novel is an excellent introduction to mythology. While a student may not at first be interested in reading Homer's epic poem, The Iliad, the student may consider reading this paperback. Though some of the events seem improbable...anything is possible when Greek gods and goddesses intervene. Readers will end this book wanting to learn more about Eros, Aphrodite, and others. Obviously, readers will want to know more about the legend of Troy as well.

It was interesting to view the story of Troy through the eyes of four teenagers who are common citizens who had to endure the siege that not only limited food resources, but nearly reduced everyone to the same level. This story includes passion, action, violence and sadness.