Maiden, mistress, monster, myth. However you think of her, there’s no doubt that you know Medusa and likely can summon to your mind an image of her slithering snakes if asked. In I, MEDUSA, New York Times bestselling author Ayana Gray brings each of these identities to life to explore the various women Medusa could have been if she had not been relegated to the footnotes of the stories of other Greek mythological figures. Here, Medusa is invited to take center stage in all her glory…and rage.

Phorcys and Ceto were once primordial sea gods who controlled vast leagues of the open sea. That changed when Zeus took over, making way for the Olympians to lord over Greece, and relegating Phorcys and Ceto to an unnamed island off the coast, shadows of the ancient and powerful beings they once were. Though they live in abundance, with slaves and endless decadent food and wine, they know that their only hope of gaining real power lies in their three daughters: Stheno, Euryale and Medusa.

But while Stheno and Euryale are goddesses, blessed with supernatural beauty and skin that bleeds gold and heals within moments of any abrasion, Medusa is fully mortal and, according to her parents, homely to boot. At the moment we meet the three sisters, Phorcys and Ceto are planning to host an extravagant party attended by mortal royalty and bastard gods. Of course, they hope that their daughters will marry gods, allowing them to infiltrate the Olympians’ inner circle.

"An instant classic of Greek mythology retellings, I, MEDUSA surely will encourage readers to explore marginalized characters like Medusa with a close eye, exposing the ways that women --- especially Black women --- have gone unrecognized and unheard for far too long."

When Euryale is selected by Prince Maheer, the mortal bastard son of the god Ares, it seems that the family’s luck has changed. But Stheno and Medusa see something that Euryale does not: Prince Maheer is a wicked, abusive man, and thanks to Euryale’s goddess blood and immortality, she will be forced to suffer his violence --- without a trace --- until the end of his life, whenever that may come.

In a move that exposes the seed of the rage she will become known for, Medusa takes matters into her own hands. She saves her sister and catches the attention of the goddess Athena, who invites her to train as an esteemed priestess in Athena's temple in Athens. Like her sisters, Medusa has spent her entire life dreaming of only one thing: getting off the island, away from her disgruntled, abusive parents, and experiencing the real world and all that it has to offer. From what she can tell, marriage is a contract more than anything, and men are not always kind. But Athena seems --- unlike anyone else in her life --- to really see her. So she takes the offer, accepting a ride from the god Hermes to the famed acropolis that Athena calls home.

In Athens, Medusa is exposed not just to the inner workings of temple life, but also to the flavor of the city, where she sees mortals of every color and language experiencing the world. Unlike her parents and sisters, to whom lavishness and excess have become normal, the people of Athens walk both sides of the wealth divide. But no matter how many coins they have to rub together, they live. Having been raised among immortals, Medusa can see for the first time what it means to treasure a moment, a day, a week. She takes to her priestess training with the same eagerness, especially since a core tenet of Athena’s teachings is to give back to and protect the community.

For the first time ever, Medusa finds that her cleverness is appreciated, and she quickly rises in the ranks of her fellow acolytes, each of whom has her own reason for arriving at Athena’s temple and wanting to become one of her esteemed priestesses. Even here, though, Medusa experiences racism at the hands of some of her peers. Although she eventually finds a best friend in her fellow trainee, Apollonia, this friendship further exposes to her the depths of misogyny present in Athens and in Athena’s own temple.

But we all know how this story goes. Even as Medusa has been uncovering her own silent power and learning how to best wield the anger she has always felt --- at being ignored, neglected and marginalized --- another god has been watching her: Poseidon, the sea king and Athena’s former competition for the ownership of Athens. Medusa has always felt ugly and plain next to her beautiful goddess sisters, but Poseidon seems captivated by her, and he is always there just when she needs him.

While an astute reader can quickly read the signs of grooming and rape culture, naive Medusa cannot, and her rise in the temple ranks is matched by Poseidon’s increasing hold on her, until the inevitable occurs. Poseidon --- powerful and reckless, unstoppable and unmatched --- rapes Medusa, a girl who only has barely learned what sex is. Although it was nonconsensual, Athena cannot stomach an unchaste priestess…and, well, you know the rest. Medusa --- first a girl, then a maiden, and now a priestess --- becomes the only thing she will ever be known for: a monster.

In her author’s note, Ayana Gray explains that she researched countless versions of Medusa’s tale and writes that “in every version of Medusa’s myth, she is mortal, and in every version she is murdered by a famous Greek hero through decapitation.” Choosing to honor Medusa in the same way that her killer has long been honored, she refuses to include the “hero’s” name in I, MEDUSA. Similarly, while there are many versions of her encounters with Poseidon, Gray’s Medusa exists in the complicated nuances of rape culture, especially in situations that involve a power imbalance.

The book is cribbed from many versions of the same story, but through Gray’s searing, unflinching gaze, it feels the most believable of them all: a girl, a Black mortal girl at that, subjected to a complex power dynamic, exploited for its benefit, and ultimately demonized because of it. Her choice to revisit Medusa’s mythology through a lens of race and femininity is a powerful one. In writing Medusa through each of her many identities, she allows her to stand on her own, with each retelling getting closer and closer to the truth of herself.

An instant classic of Greek mythology retellings, I, MEDUSA surely will encourage readers to explore marginalized characters like Medusa with a close eye, exposing the ways that women --- especially Black women --- have gone unrecognized and unheard for far too long.