Format: audiobook ~ Narrator: Catrin Walker-Booth
Content: 2.5 stars ~ Narration: 4 stars

Rounded to ★★★☆☆.

Ithaca is a story of Penelope, the wife of Odysseus. It has been seventeen years since her husband sailed to the Trojan War. After many years, after the war ended, he’s still not back. And everyone assumes her husband is dead. Suitors, who want to take Odysseus’ place as king of Ithaca, constantly come to Penelope.

You will understand the story better if you are already acquainted with the original story of Odyssey and Agamemnon. This retelling is different from what I’m used to. Ithaca's characters seem more like real-life persons. Everything in this novel does not sound perfect, beautiful, and artificial, as poets often tell these kinds of stories. I liked that. I also appreciated a few feminist views and some details, for example, words or sentences, that make characters more human. The novel is interesting in one way, but I wasn’t fully engaged. Although Ithaca is not bad altogether, it left me quite indifferent. Goddess Hera narrates the story of Penelope. I think this adds only to the confusion of the reader. Also, there are too many side characters. Some get their 5-minutes of fame (or even less). At some points, reading was confusing and even boring at others.

I guess not all readers will share my opinion. I believe this will be an engaging read for some readers and a little less for others.

Thanks to Hachette Audio for the ALC and this opportunity! This is a voluntary review and all opinions are my own.

I had high hopes for this feminist really of Penolope - however I fold this book to be so boring 😭 and the characters to be two-dimensiona. It was hard to find any of them likable. The plot fell flats as this retelling didn't add anything to the original story. I finished but consider DNFing it too

Thank you to Hachette Audio & NetGalley for allowing me to listen to this audio arc

This was a bit of a slow read for me, but also a really good one...

Ithaca discusses what happens in Odysseus's home just after the Trojan War, as the events of the Odyssey are transpiring. While Athena protects Odysseus and Telemachus, Hera, queen of the gods and wife to Zeus, looks after Penelope as she tries to rule Ithaca, while at the same time managing the political implications of having a territory without a king. Because of the Trojan War, Ithaca was left only with the women, the very young and very old men, which makes it complicated to protect the island.

Ithaca was so good at presenting these women who were left behind in Ithaca during the Trojan War, especially Penelope, who is so often disregarded, but finally gets to be the lead in this story. Hera has a special affection for the Greek queens - Penelope, Helen and, especially, Clytemnestra - and with the goddess at the helm in this book, we get to see more of Ithaca's women.

The narrator for Ithaca's audiobook was excellent and managed to elevate the novel.

This is a very solid revision of The Odyssey, with strong characters. It perked my interest immediately, as the unique main point of view is that of Hera, Queen of the ancient Greek pantheon. As a mother goddess, she used to rule alone, until the upstart and very brutal Zeus steals her place. Hera does not let Zeus, or the reader, ever forget this. Meanwhile, among humankind, it's been 17 years since Odysseus was conscripted into fighting in the Trojan War. He has still not returned home to the rocky, gods forsaken, island of Ithaca.

Odysseus's wife Penelope is ruling the island wisely and well--especially given the fact that, as a woman, she cannot be seen wielding any sort of political power. The second class nature of women in ancient Greek society is driven home relentlessly in the story--as are the many ways the women characters subvert and manipulate the patriarchy to their own ends.

Sadly, despite her political acumen and obvious managerial skills, things are not going well for our Penelope. She is besieged by suitors, who are eating her out of house and home, demanding that she remarry one of them. Her son Telemachus is a sulky teenager who belittles her as much as the boorish suitors do, thinking he proves his manhood this way. Ithaca is under attack from raids by pirates, and stronger kingdoms, like that Menelaus's Mycenae, are just waiting in the wings to gobble the country up.

I wanted to like this novel more than I did. North has done her research and sticks to the main plot of The Odyssey, while adding some imaginative new twists. The writing is good, in some places even poetic. But the pace drags in places and the plot can become a little too convoluted. More importantly, I just couldn't care about the characters. Penelope was too wise, Hera too bitter, Elektra too unhinged, and Clytemnestra was just, well, too Clytemnestra. And yes, I was very worried about the fate of the unhappy maids, especially after reading Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad. I only hope they fare better in this proposed trilogy than in the original.

Given that The Odyssey was transmitted orally for perhaps 1,500 years before it was codified under Homer (or who ever composed the work), I did get a kick out of listening to this re-telling. The audio version was very ably read by Catrin Walker-Booth. Many thanks to Net Galley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

As the name suggests, Ithaca is set at the home of Odysseus. The Trojan War is long over and Odysseus is presumed dead. Penelope keeps holding off on taking a suitor because she believes that Odysseus is still alive. The book shows the women, elderly men, and young men who were left behind during the Trojan War as conflicts arise again. Although this book follows Penelope, it is from Hera's perspective as she watches things unfold around Ithaca. Every now and then she updates readers on how Odysseus is as he's trapped with Calypso.

This is an excellent book for mythology superfans. I don't fall into that category, but I did enjoy this book based on the things I knew before picking up Ithaca. If you want something to help you ease your way into reading Greek Mythology retellings, this is not the book for that.

I got an e-ARC of the audiobook and liked the narrator. A sequel is expected to come out in 2023, so there's a good chance I will pick that one up when it's out.

Thank you to Redhook, Hachette Audio, and NetGalley for an e-ARC of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook! It is definitely long at 11 hours and was a bit difficult for me at times to keep the names straight without seeing them, but it sucked me in immediately. I was confused at first why Hera was the main narrator, but then enjoyed her snarky take on all the players throughout the story. I particularly liked the back and forth between Hera and Athena and watching the machinations of the gods in the trials of man. I didn't know a lot about either Penelope or Clytemnestra, but am now looking forward to learning more about both! The narrator is fantastic throughout. A big thank you to Redhook, Hachette Audio, and NetGalley for the early listen for my honest opinion.

(4/5) I will start this review by saying that I am a SUCKER for mythology retellings, especially ones that center women in their retellings. When I saw this book on NetGalley with its gorgeous cover, I knew I had to request it. I haven't read a Penelope retelling yet, and I did enjoy this one. I have mixed feelings about Hera being the all-knowing narrator. On the one hand, we do get a much broader picture of the events of the book beyond what a single narrator like Penelope would be able to give us and I did enjoy getting a peek into Hera's perspective. On the other hand, I feel like having an omniscient narrator at some level prevented me from knowing the minds of the individual characters of focus, and because of that, the book felt more plot driven than character driven. I also did not realize that this is a series and not a standalone book, so I kept waiting for the pace of the story to pick up. Overall, I thought the themes of this book were well presented, and I look forward to reading the next books in the trilogy!

I really enjoyed the audiobook narrator and thought they were clear and easy to understand.

3.5 stars, rounded up

I am loving this trend of re-working mythology to tell the story from the woman's viewpoint. I love mythology, and so I enjoyed this book, but it didn't quite live up to some of the other recent books in this trend.

This is basically Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad but longer. The length does allow for more character development, but I can't say that the additional development added a lot of depth to our understanding of Penelope.

Will I read any more books in this series? Definitely.
But was this one of my favorites? Not really.

If you're a huge fan of mythology, I recommend this. Otherwise, I don't think you'll find it worth the slog.

Thank you to NetGalley and Redhook for this ARC.

i received the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

i received both the e-arc and the audiobook and i switched reading and listening up a bit. i’ll say the narrator had a good voice for this, but because of the writing, sometimes it seemed a little like a textbook on greek mythology, especially in the beginning.

as for the actual story, i’ll say i think one needs more knowledge of greek mythology than i have. so that was a bit of a bummer, because i sometimes had no clue what was going on, and only started understanding bits of the actual story around 40%, when i switched to reading instead of listening. thankfully i do know the story of elektra and her family, because if i didn’t, i think i would be very confused reading this book.

i liked the writing, even though it was a bit too descriptive at times. i liked the feminist approach the author took and the men-hating lines made my day.

overall, i liked reading it. but i think i should have read it after obtaining more knowledge of greek mythology. not much to do about that now though.

Tenía mucho interés en el nuevo libro de Claire North, porque la mitología clásica siempre es un acierto en esta casa y North es una autora que no te deja indiferente. Además, la idea de que Ithaca tenía como narradora a la diosa Hera me llamaba poderosamente la atención, así como el enfoque feminista de la novela.


Ithaca se sitúa en es la isla homónima, 18 años después de la partida de Ulises y en pleno apogeo de los aspirantes al matrimonio con Penélope y por supuesto a su trono. La guerra de Troya se llevó a la flor y nata de los hombres de las naciones griegas, dejando atrás las mujeres para hacerse cargo de todo mientras ellos buscaban la gloria en el campo de batalla.

Penélope se encuentra por lo tanto en la incómoda situación de tener que caminar haciendo un difícil equilibrio entre defender su posición sin irritar a ninguno de los pretendientes, que buscan cualquier excusa para forzar su elección y acabar con el status quo. Además, los continuos festines que son necesarios para honrar a los visitantes suponen una pesada carga para los limitados recursos de la isla y el escenario es cada día más inestable.

Me gusta cómo la autora ha decidido cargar las tintas en esta dualidad, en la capacidad de las mujeres para gestionar cualquier proyecto de forma eficiente pero cómo la hipocresía de la sociedad contemporánea las obliga a ocultar sus méritos so pena de ser acusadas de brujería o cualquier otra patraña. ¿Cuánto tiempo ha pasado desde la época griega clásica? Y, sin embargo, vemos algunas situaciones que podrían ser reflejo perfecto de la actualidad.

También me gusta mucho la elección de la narradora, porque Hera a pesar de ser una de las diosas más poderosas es quizá también una de las más desconocidas, famosa más bien por la cornamenta que le hace lucir su marido y sus arrebatos de ira frente a los vástagos del Amo del Olimpo. Debería ser el narrador omnisciente por antonomasia,

El libro tiene un ritmo pausado, con especial hincapié en las desigualdades hombre-mujer más que en la epicidad típica de los mitos griegos. Y es un cambio interesante, pero también he de reconocer que a veces peca de morosa en determinados capítulos. Por otra parte, a la mayoría de los personajes masculinos dan ganas de estrellarlos contra la pared, especialmente Telémaco, que es un quiero y no puedo de manual.

Existe una versión en audiolibro, narrada por Catrin Walker-Booth, que es la que yo he leído. Su labor es correcta, pero no encuentro ningún detalle especial que destacar sobre su trabajo.

El problema que le veo a la novela es que Claire North ha renunciado a su estilo más característico y reconocible de prosa para adaptarse a la narración de los mitos griegos, pero esta misma renuncia es la que hace que Ithaca no destaque sobremanera entre los muchísimos retellings de mitología clásica que ya existen.

This was fine but not for me. The descriptions were a bit too long. I also felt like the narrator was not my favorite. I do know that other people will really enjoy this book but it wasn't for me. I had a hard time even reading the song of achilles.

I didn't hate this, but I was expecting to love it and therefore ended up disappointed. 😅 Unfortunately, it fell short of my expectations for another myth retelling in the vein of Circe, Ariadne, or Kaikeyi.

It is a woman-focused, feminist myth retelling. The difference is that those stories were first person narratives following the (nearly) entire lives of the main characters. Ithaca is narrated by Hera, but isn't really Hera's story. I think this is supposed to be the story of Ithaca (Ithaca specifically after the Trojan war but before Odysseus's return). But it is confusing because we are getting Hera's perspective of Penelope mostly. It feels like it wants to be the story of Penelope, but it doesn't fully commit. And that lowered the stakes and my investment as a reader.

The story portrays many different female characters all dealing with the patriarchy in different ways. I think that that was the ultimate point of this story. Ariadne did something similar. The difference is that Ariadne made me really deeply sympathize with the characters and filled me with warmth and hope. Ithaca did none of those things for me. Ariadne had beautiful, flowing prose. Ithaca had prose that was perfectly fine, but not especially beautiful.

I'm being really critical, but I did enjoy this. Some of the female characters were really badass! There were definitely some cool scenes.

I listened to the audio which was read by Catrin Walker-Booth. It was well done.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hachette Audio for the audio arc.

Sexual violence? Yes. Other content warnings? Slavery, violence, misogyny, killing.

thank you to Redhook Books and Hachette Audio for this early audio copy!

if you know me, you know i will never get enough of greek mythology retellings, especially not ones that highlight the women's stories. 'ithaca' tells the story of queen penelope and all the women of the island, during the years of waiting for odysseus to come home. i haven't read 'the penelopiad', but it seems comparable so i'd recommend this if you enjoyed that one! what made this so unique, is that the whole story is narrated by hera, queen of the gods and queen of queens. i really loved her way of storytelling, her scheming and her emotional connections to the queens of greece.

one disadvantage of this narrator, however, is that she skipped around a bit too much. there were so many minor characters that would also be highlighted, that it sometimes became hard to follow (especially when listening) and hard to connect to every character. i would have loved to have penelope as a second narrator, so she'd get the full opportunity to shine in her story!

i was surprised to find that the story of elektra and clytemnestra played such a big role in this book as well, and enjoyed reading this interpretation as well. especially if you loved jennifer saint's 'elektra' this year, i'd recommend checking this one out!

The story of Odysseus is heard a lot more frequently than that of his wife, Penelope. This is her story.

We find ourselves on the Island of Ithaca, where Odysseus set sail from many years ago. He left his wife, Penelope, behind to take care of the kingdom. Odysseus has been gone for so long now that everyone is speculating that Odysseus is dead and doubting his return. Since the king is gone, there is a power gap and it is up to Penelope to save Ithaca from war and destruction.

I liked the overall story and the word building- the descriptions of places and events were very detailed. I think I would have enjoyed this more if it was told from Penelope’s POV instead of Hera’s. There are also a LOT of characters to keep track of which makes this a more challenging read. I listened to this as an audiobook, so a reader might have a different experience.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hachette Audio for allowing me to review this book. It will be published on September 6, 2022.