Medusa: The Girl Behind the Myth (Illustrated Gift Edition)

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Jessie Burton has followed down the path taken by writers such as Pat Barker, Madeline Miller, and Natalie Haynes. And that path is retelling these ancient myths from the perspective of, not minor characters, but characters who do not shine in the spotlight. In particular the female voice rarely heard in many of these tales.

This book is absolutely stunning. A beautiful modern re-telling of a very old tale. It was refreshing to see the point of view of a young Medusa. Not the scary gorgon that she is most commonly known as. The Medusa. What did he mean, the Medusa? My name was Medusa, and I was a girl. Perseus had made me sound like a mythical beast. I didn't want to be a myth. I wanted to be me.” This is a hard review to write, folks, as I had really high hopes - but unfortunately, they were pretty thoroughly dashed.Exiled to a far-flung island by the whims of the gods, Medusa has little company except the snakes that adorn her head instead of hair. But when a charmed, beautiful boy called Perseus arrives on the island, her lonely existence is disrupted with the force of a supernova, unleashing desire, love, betrayal . and destiny itself.

Four years on and exiled in a remote island with little company except her two immortal sisters, dog and the snakes that adorn her head, Medusa is entranced by the arrival of Perseus. A friend that she begins to trust, and with the desire to shed the ‘ache of loneliness’, she opens up to him. A friend or yet another male that is about to deceive her?. With this novel Burton tells the storYou see, remembering's a blessing and a curse. You can't erase your bad memories, but a life without regrets is a life unlived. What you remember and how you remember: it makes you who you are. Maybe you have a choice about that, maybe you don't.”

If I told you that I'd killed a man with a glance, would you wait to hear the rest? The why, the how, what happened next? Filled with glorious full-colour illustrations by award-winning Olivia Lomenech Gill, this astonishing retelling of Greek myth is perfect for readers of Circe and The Silence of the Girls. Illuminating the girl behind the legend, it brings alive Medusa for a new generation. Her third novel for adults, The Confession, was published in 2019. [14] [15] Medusa, her second book for children, was published in 2021. [16]

About the contributors

Burton’s Medusa is a young woman trapped in her own body. Her body transformed into the monster by Athena that is now her prison. She is unbearably lonely, horrified by what she has become. Indelibly she is slowly dying inside. But all myths have to start somewhere. As did Medusa's. She was once a young woman, happy to sail along the shores of her land, fishing and enjoying her freedom along with her sisters. Oblivious to whether or not she was beautiful, until she was “accused” of being just that in the small village where she lived. It ailed her to think of people either adoring or being jealous of her for her beauty, as it seemed this was something that belonged to them, rather than to her. All she wanted was to float above the azure seas. Which is where she unfortunately caught the eye of the sea god Poseidon, who would not take no for an answer. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I would have been about 13. God, what a wild, weird story it is – and most of it went over my head. I distinctly remember the chill of Mrs Danvers, and it felt like the first proper grown-up book I’d read. It taught me how people can be strange and secretive. It felt sophisticated but uneasy, like so much of Du Maurier’s work. Burton studied at Lady Margaret School, [4] Brasenose College, Oxford, and the Central School of Speech and Drama. [5]