I, Medusa by Ayana Gray: A Moody Mythic Retelling Book Review

The old stories of gods and heroes and monsters were constantly in flux, changing with each retelling and reflecting the times in which they were told but preserving the deep wisdom the ancient ones meant to preserve and pass along from one generation to the next.

When contemporary authors reimagine old stories from mythology, they continue this tradition, and Ayana Gray has put a thoroughly modern (in all the right ways) spin on the journey of Medusa from maiden to monster.

The first thing that struck me was the tone of the prose—many of the oldest sources we have for ancient myths are epic poems, and Gray really captured some of the cadence of that as she wrote from Medusa’s perspective. It feels like you’re reading something ancient, but without the difficulty of deciphering all of the references and idioms that the ancients would have been steeped in but often puzzle the modern reader.

Ayana Gray’s exploration of Black women’s relationship with their hair, and the community care of each other via caring for hair, juxtaposed with the transformation of Medusa’s locs into hissing, biting snakes is breathtaking.

Just a heads up if you’re not familiar with the store of Medusa, a big part of it is her rape by Poseidon (which does happen on page) and Athena’s grossly unjust reaction to her violation. Ayana Gray did an excellent job capturing the brutality of the assaults in the book without being gratuitous about them. She grapples with some of the complexity and nuance that conversation about consent often does not want to consider (but must!), and dismantles rape culture-steeped beliefs about power, coercion, blame, and stigma.

The reader gets a good look into Medusa’s head throughout the story, and by the time she fully sinks into being the dread creature of myth we are right there with her.

This book is perfect for someone looking for a moody mythic retelling that vindicates the woman we’ve been told was monstrous without accountability for those who made her that way.