80. Lee Child - Killing Floor

I have stopped the challenge. There are so many things I feel I have to do in a week, that I don't want to stress myself out by forcing myself to read books within a week as well. I will still try to finish books within a week though and I will still write a short story about them after I've finished them. Let's just see how I'll get on by doing it this way.

I really wanted to read the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child. The film, with Tom Cruise, was absolutely amazing and I felt that Reacher would be just the action hero character for me. In Killing Floor I can kind of sense that I will like him, but I'm not sure yet. This first book hasn't pulled me in as much as I thought it would. This one is about Reacher who has just arrived in a tiny town in the Midwest; the moment he sits down at the cafe he is arrested by the local police force because they suspect him of having killed two people the night before. 

79. Madeline Miller - The Song of Achilles

I've had another short holiday. I broke up with my boyfriend, so I had to move house again. I'm in a lovely flat now with a good friend and all's good again in the world. In 2011 I read 36 books and in 2012 I manages to read 42. I'm quite impressed, but I hope 2013 will be better.

The first book of the year is an excellent start. Madeline Miller's first novel The Song of Achilles is a re-telling of the Greek Mythology around half-god Achilles and his friend Patroclus, who has always been undervalued but who's the centre of this novel.

The story will be familiar to many people. Some, like me, love Greek mythology and have read about Achilles and the Trojan War, others have watched Troy (2004) with Brad Pitt as Achilles. In any case, this book gives us a different point-of-view. We are now looking at the events through the eyes of Achilles' lover Patroclus, who isn't a hero, or a half-god, he's an exiled prince whose mother was close to being retarded and whose father has always hated the ground he walked on because he saw him as weak.

"But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another." (Miller 347)

Achilles, however, saw something in him. Patroclus blossoms and the Trojan War suddenly because a love story that isn't centred on Paris and Helen. I hope that this isn't Miller's final book, because I would love for her to rewrite all the Greek mythologies, there are so many beautiful stories hidden in there. I hope that Odysseus tale will be next, but who knows...