What if the gods didn’t bless Arachne after all? What if, like all mortals, she had to toil, ignored by the gods until she, through her own hard work, achieved a kind of immortality, the only kind that is granted to us?
Spin by Rebecca Caprara is the second book I read because it’s on the required reading list for an online workshop on revising your verse novel that I will be attending later this year. I would never have enrolled for this workshop if I had not received the Highlights Foundation scholarship, and I might then never have read this stunning book!
Modern and feminist without ever being anachronistic, Spin shows us how power is wielded by those who tell stories. When Persephone is snatched into the Underworld, her own father Zeus is complicit. Helios, the sun, pretends he saw nothing. It is Hecate, goddess of the night, who is relentless in her search for Persephone, aiding Demeter in every way she can.
Stories of women, when told by men, merely gloss over what happened. It’s when women tell the story that a truer picture has the chance to emerge.
Now, the bards will say she is
Spin – Rebecca Caprara, p.113
“defeated by the brightness of the god”
that she eventually
“quits her protest”
then finally
“endures his force”
or, worse,
“takes his passion without complaint.”
This is a gilded lie. Helios rapes Leocothoe.
His touch leaves her burned and blistered.
I felt a surge of triumph each time I read a section that tells things like they are. Page after page, my heart rejoiced and ached as I read this sapphic young adult verse novel. I’m not a fan of retellings. I’m not a Greek mythology buff. And yet, this book drew me in and filled me up.
| Title | Spin |
| Author | Rebecca Caprara |
| Tags | Young Adult, Verse Novel, Sapphic |
| Rating (out of 5) | 5 |
| Ages | 13+ |
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