I really enjoyed I, Medusa, even though it took me a little while to get into it. At first, the story felt slow, but once I gave it a chance, I found myself completely invested. By the end, I realized that what bothered me most about the book was not just what happened to Medusa. It was how familiar the injustice felt.
That is what stayed with me.
Medusa was violated, blamed, punished, humiliated, and transformed because of what someone else did to her. Then she was expected to keep moving through the world carrying the consequences as if she had somehow brought them on herself.
And people do that every day.
People are harmed, mistreated, assaulted, betrayed, and publicly judged, while everybody around them keeps going to work, going to dinner, laughing, posting pictures, and living as if nothing happened. The person who was hurt is expected to pick themselves up, adapt, heal quietly, and keep moving.
Medusa did exactly that.
She tried to move forward.
She tried to create a life after everything that had been done to her.
And Athena still could not leave her alone.
That is where my frustration with Athena turned into complete disgust.
Athena was supposed to be the goddess of wisdom, yet throughout this story she repeatedly blamed women for what men did to them. Women who had been violated were treated as though their drinking, beauty, choices, or loss of chastity somehow made them responsible for their own abuse.
Then there was Medusa.
Poseidon manipulated her. Medusa changed her mind. She said wait!!!
That should have been enough.
Instead, Athena treated Medusa as though she were the offender. She stripped her of her beauty, turned her into a Gorgon, and punished her sisters as well simply because one dared to challenge her and the other dared to grieve.
That was not wisdom.
That was cruelty.
What made Athena even more unbearable to me was what happened later. After throwing Medusa to the wolves and destroying the life she once knew, Athena still had the audacity to approach her and expect loyalty. She expected Medusa to kill for her.
And when Medusa would not do it, Athena threatened her.
Imagine punishing someone for what was done to them, abandoning them to deal with the consequences, and then returning later expecting obedience.
The entitlement was unbelievable.
Athena could not stand that Medusa had survived her.
She could not stand that Medusa still had a will of her own.
And ultimately, her anger and pride helped lead to Medusa’s death.
That part hit me harder than I expected because it reminded me of how often people in power are willing to destroy someone rather than admit they were wrong.
Instead of apologizing, they double down.
Instead of protecting the person who was harmed, they protect the system.
Instead of confronting the person with more power, they punish the person who is easier to blame.
And sometimes the people helping that system continue are women themselves.
That was one of the strongest things I took from Athena’s character. She was a woman with enormous power, yet she repeatedly used that power against other women while allowing powerful men to escape the same level of judgment.
That dynamic did not feel ancient to me at all.
It felt extremely current.
That is probably why this book made me so angry while still making me enjoy it so much.
It forced me to sit with the fact that injustice does not always look dramatic from the outside. Sometimes a person’s entire world has fallen apart while everyone else continues walking past them.
Sometimes the victim survives and everybody assumes that means the damage is over.
Sometimes the person who caused the harm never truly faces consequences.
And sometimes the people who should know better become part of the problem.
By the end of I, Medusa, I understood why Medusa’s story has lasted for so long. This version was not simply about a monster with snakes for hair. It was about what can happen when someone is victimized, blamed, punished, and then forced to build a life from what is left.
And Athena?
Her sister had every reason to call her exactly what she called her.
Because goddess of wisdom or not, Athena spent far too much of this story acting like a hypocritical, spiteful bitch.
Pray Eat Slay 