Rosie Hewlett’s Medusa is a blazing, cathartic masterpiece—an eruption of female rage, grief, and long-silenced truth that feels as ancient as myth and as immediate as today’s world. This fictional memoir gives Medusa her voice back after centuries of being flattened into a villain, a monster, a cautionary symbol in a story that was never hers to tell in the first place. Hewlett’s retelling pulses with pain and power, and it left me deeply moved.

You know her name, you know her story. Just not the right one...

Within the depths of the Underworld the formidable snake-haired Gorgon has finally had enough. Tired of being eternally and unjustly brandished a villain, Medusa has found the courage to face her tragic past and speak out. Determined to expose the centuries of lies surrounding her name, Medusa gives unparalleled insight into her cursed life, from her earliest memories and abandonment at birth, right through to her tragic and untimely death at the hands of the hero Perseus. Through telling her story, Medusa finally reveals the lost truth behind antiquity’s most infamous monster.

Medusa breathes new life into an ancient story and echoes the battle that women throughout millennia have continued to wage – the opportunity to simply be heard.

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Opinion

From the opening pages, it’s clear that Hewlett is reclaiming Medusa not as a creature lurking in the shadows, but as a girl—young, devout, hopeful—who dedicates her life to Athena, only to be betrayed by the goddess she trusted most. The injustice radiating from that betrayal is almost unbearable. Poseidon’s violence, Athena’s retaliation, and the divine indifference of Olympus all fuse into a portrait of the ancient world’s cruelty toward women—cruelty that still resonates painfully in the present.

Hewlett’s depiction of female rage is astonishing: a raw, unfiltered emotional current that surges through every chapter. Medusa’s shame, her guilt, her fear, her endless frustration, her desperation, her fury—Hewlett makes every emotion so vivid that I felt it all right alongside her. The narrative doesn’t shy away from the ugliness of what happened to her, nor from the slow internal unraveling that follows. But it also doesn’t deny Medusa her humanity. She is allowed to be flawed, hopeful, confused, compassionate, angry, fierce—and above all, real.

What struck me deeply, even though it isn’t something the book explicitly states, is how Medusa’s story mirrors the experiences of so many survivors today. That resonance is something I brought to the reading, something I felt in my bones as Medusa struggled to reclaim her identity. For generations, women—especially those who share her trauma—have found themselves reflected in her. Many wear her face as a tattoo, not as a symbol of monstrosity but as a declaration of strength forged through injustice. That connection between Medusa and modern survivors comes from us women, all the survivors, the readers, and from the world that has reinterpreted her image—not directly from Hewlett’s text.

Still, the novel amplifies why such a connection has always existed. Medusa’s story is one of profound violation, silencing, and transformation, and Hewlett’s retelling captures that with breathtaking emotional depth. Medusa’s relationships—with her sisters Euryale and Stheno, with her terrifying yet compelling mother, and even with Perseus, her eventual killer she befriended in her final days—are rendered with remarkable tenderness and nuance. Through these bonds, Medusa becomes more than a symbol; she becomes a person with desires, fears, regrets, and hopes.

One of the most powerful aspects of the book is Medusa’s journey toward forgiving herself. The gods never grant her mercy, the world never grants her justice, but through telling her truth—finally, completely—she finds a kind of peace that feels both hard-won and deeply deserved.

Conclusion

Hewlett has crafted one of the most compelling and emotionally resonant mythological retellings I’ve ever read. Her prose is both lyrical and fierce, her portrayal of Medusa unforgettable. This book is full of guilt, shame, frustration, desperation, anger, fury—and ultimately, hard-earned forgiveness. It is a searing reclaiming of voice and agency for a woman wronged not just by gods, but by centuries of misunderstanding.

Medusa is extraordinary. Five stars, without hesitation.

About Rosie Hewlett

Rosie Hewlett is the Sunday Times Bestselling author of MEDEA and MEDUSA.

Having secured a First Class Honours degree in Classical Literature and Civilisation at the University of Birmingham, Rosie Hewlett has studied Greek mythology in depth and is passionate about unearthing strong female voices within the classical world. Rosie currently lives in Kent with her husband and is now a full-time author spending her days lost inside her favourite stories from mythology.

Rosie's first traditionally published novel, Medea, was an instant Sunday Times bestseller. Her self-published debut novel, Medusa, won the Rubery Book of the Year award in 2021 and was re-released in hardback for the first time in autumn 2025.

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