A very different slant on the 20 year separation of Odysseus and Penelope during the mythological "Odyssey" of ancient Greece. Penelope, long-suffering and honest, shares her innermost emotions on the physical and psychological impact of her abandonment and her ultimate personal growth. Voices of her adventurous war-faring husband, their son, and a few others are presented in support, defense and empathy. It's a small dense book with big impact. ( )

Esther Seligson's Yearning for the Sea is much more than a reimagining of the end of Homer's Odyssey. It quickly moves beyond this conceit into a very real portrayal of nuanced emotion, the messiness of love, desire, and hatred, and the competing narratives of two people in a relationship. Who is right? Whose needs hold more weight?

Poetic, moving, and though slim, this novella holds a vast ocean to immerse yourself in. ( )

I won this as an Early Reviewer book. As a retelling of Ulysses and Penelope, it finds a mood of reflection from different points of view. It was a difficult read for such a short book, maybe it was more fluid in Spanish. It would probably serve best to be read in a class along side the original story. ( )

This was an ARC, a brief, and very literary novella, translated from Spanish. Esther Seligson was a Mexican writer, poet, playwright, and sounds like quite the character. This is the story of the Odyssey from Penelope's viewpoint. Seligson's version of Penelope is sexier and more impatient than the traditional version.

I liked that the book explored Penelope's character from different points of view. Here is Penelope's voice "I spent this morning trying to reproduce a beat, the beat of our lovemaking of former days, oblivious as if frozen in a dream, and I felt a great stirring in the air, a huge commotion among the seagulls, and the dog, your dog, has not stopped barking for one second."

Here is Ulysses "Fate does not come calling only once in a lifetime, but how often are we able to hear, follow, obey its call?"

We also hear from Telemachus, and from the nurse, Eurycleia. The different voices allow us to think about the roles of women throughout history and what it takes to challenge the assigned role. ( )

This was a delightful quick and complicated read. Introduced by Telemachus, fragments about Penelope’s wait for Odysseus and her response when he arrives home. Odysseus and Eurycleia also get a chance to speak, but Penelope has the last word. It packs a lot into 35 pages, it’s more like a fragment itself instead of a novella . . . ( )