Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This seems to be the right time of year to pick out a ton of books all focused on retelling old Greek myths!

Perennial favorite C. S. Lewis went out of his way to retell the story of Psyche and Cupid from the PoV of Orual, the ugly sister, and it's a very well-told tale. He admits he uses the original as a template and goes on to make a much more psychological and grounded tale than the original, and he pulls it off delightfully, full of Orual's obsessive angst, her striving to be better, her complaints against the gods, and eventually the god's replies.

More than the original, I think, this retelling captures the darker and more intricate differences and pulls off an entirely different level of storytelling. There's the surface story, the tale told by the Fox about the actual Greek legend, and the under-story which is a purely psychological exploration of all the secrets that the original legend tells us.

It's very Psyche-logical. :)

Out of all of Lewis' works, I think I like this the best. :)

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