I, Medusa - Review

*I received a physical & digital copy from Random House Publishing and NetGalley. All reviews are my own.

A couple of years ago, Beyoncé’s internet broke after a college student theorized that Medusa, the infamous Greek Mythology villain, could have been a black woman. As people debated her possible race, many revisited Medusa’s tragic backstory. For so long, we’ve pictured her as the snake-haired, stone-cold Gorgon, turning all who dared meet her gaze into statues. But who was Medusa before the legend? In I, Medusa, Ayana Gray reimagines her story, tracing Medusa’s transformation from a sheltered girl to a casualty of rape culture and the aftermath that shaped her.

"Throughout her life, Medusa has always felt out of place, with the feeling that she was merely a supporting character in someone else's story. Unlike her beautiful sisters and parents, both minor gods of Olympus, she is just a mortal, and being so different from her family becomes increasingly distressing. Therefore, her greatest dream is to leave the island where she lives to find her own place in the world.

When the goddess Athena invites her to train in her temple, Meddy seizes the opportunity to become the goddess's prestigious priestess.

Becoming Athena's favorite acolyte leads the young woman to feel welcomed, but also to experience the taste of power. Her presence soon attracts the attention of another Olympian god, Poseidon, and the course of Meddy's destiny is forever altered.

After being attacked and unjustly accused of a crime she didn't commit, Medusa receives a cruel punishment: her hair is transformed into snakes. But the girl refuses to let the title of monster define who she is. Caught between the deepest desires of her heart and the perverse games of the Olympian gods, Meddy is forced to embrace a new identity and write her own story—not as a victim, but as a vigilante."

Even though I received a gorgeous spray-edged copy of the book, I opted for the audiobook experience. Narrated by Tyla Collier and A'rese Emokpae, the story took 11 hours and 33 minutes to recite. I liked both narrators, even though we didn’t hear much of Emokpae in the text. She serves as the inner, older narrative voice of Medusa and her sisters, appearing only at the beginning and end of the book. Collier was the main character throughout this entire story. Collier was the perfect fit for the role to voice a young Medusa, as she captured her innocence throughout.

I, Medusa, follow a young mortal woman trapped in the world of the Gods who wants to experience the world beyond her isolated island. She searches for her purpose, while feeding her curiosity under the wings of Athena, to become a priestess in her temple. After a traumatic encounter with one of the big three Gods, Medusa is transformed into a mythological monster, forcing her to embrace a new identity as a vigilante.

The story read a little young for me, but I understood why. Medusa, though seventeen, is painted as sheltered and naïve, untouched by the world’s harsh lessons. Some of her actions made you think, now why would she do that? She’s old enough; she should know better. But if she was never warned about the dangers of people in the world, how would she know? Medusa was sheltered, not because her parents wanted to hide her, but because they neglected to tell her the truth when it was time. Though smart and cunning, she often made decisions driven by anger and misunderstandings.

A big topic throughout the book was rape culture and what we perceive as assault. We all know the stories in Greek mythology always treated women as victims of their own doing, and this book sheds light on that. The question (an audacious one at that) is becoming a common one in today's time: what exactly is assault? Gray touches base on when to say no, how to say no, and if it matters at all. She talks about whether it matters whether being drunk, walking alongside a dark alley, or visiting a man alone is a fault. She talks about grooming. She also showed how even women will join in the victim-blaming to gain what little power they can. Gray eloquently explores the grey area of how people process an attack and asks whether it's justified.

The pacing got slow for me at times in the middle and towards the end of the book. Not that I was looking for the unfortunate downfall of Medusa, but Gray spent a lot of time journeying through Medusa’s priestess hood rather than getting to the nitty-gritty of becoming MEDUSA. I wished it had moved faster or shed some unnecessary chapters. I have my reservations about the people around Medusa for not explaining things. There were opportunities to mention things, and explanations were held back because of immortality talk, modesty, or embarrassment. It’s one thing not to know; it's another to be embarrassed publicly for being ignorant.

Overall, I rated this book 3.5-stars. It was a tough rating for me only because it read so young. The book is marketed as Adult (most likely for its suggestive themes), but it screams Middle Grade, going on Young Adult. But again, I understand why. Was Medusa truly a villain? Or was she just a naïve girl in a grown-up world trying to right it? I’ve seen a lot of women recommending this book or telling parents to read or gift it to their daughters, and I’m not against it. This is one of those books you pass down to little girls at the stage of life when they're growing up. Kind of like when your momma passed you, Flyy Girl, or the Coldest Winter Ever, and told you to come to her if you had any questions. No? Just me? Ok. I have plenty of recs that align with the characters and themes in this book! If you like Lore by Alexandra Bracken (for the Grey-Eyed Bitch), Daedalus is Dead by Seamus Sullivan (for the retelling), or specifically the story of Persephone in the graphic novel Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe, I, Medusa is for you!

I, Medusa is out now!

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