This sadly did not meet my expectations; therefore, I don't have a lot to say about it. I do, however, think that a large part of the gradual disinterest I felt toward pretty much everything about the plot was due to: 1) listening to the audiobook version and 2) reading the story over the course of a month rather than a week or two.
Unfortunately, I think this book in audiobook form is a recipe for name soup. I got incredibly lost early on with the array of titles nearly every character holds. I appreciate this aspect of the book being historically accurate and reflective of the time period, but I gave up pretty early on with my attempts to keep everyone straight. There truly are a lot of characters, and I think each and every one of them is developed as a unique individual. Did I always know who was speaking or where everyone was in a room or scene? No.
I've always been a slow reader and wear the badge proudly. That being said, I think this novel's story (multiple subplots and all) may benefit from being read at a quicker speed. That also being said, I think the pacing is largely off-base from a writing perspective. Of the other reader friends I've discussed this book with, we all agree that the first 30% is riveting while the last 70% begins to slow down less than favorably before just kind of losing momentum completely. I think trying to pull off any sort of historical fiction is a tricky and admirable endeavor, but I just don't think this quite reaches the level of excellence I was hoping for. Maybe it's due to my fuzzy understanding of the different levels and rules of the tournament, but I wanted more from what seemed like a possibly more epic series of events. If anything, I felt like some of the intrigue rested too heavily on the concept of the scullery maid turned elevated (but possibly Satan-conspiring) lady being locked in a slow burn romance with a cursed man she can never have. I also think this book helped me realize that I only really like third-person omniscient narrators if they don't jump all over the narrative from mind to mind and place to place too much. I wish I could say I liked this style better, but considering I was already wading through the name soup, I sometimes had no idea whose motivations were being examined or why it was significant. 
I'll end on a positive note: the prose was magnificent. Despite the fact that a novel can't truly thrive on nicely arranged words and vibes alone, I thought there were so many fresh metaphors sprinkled in tastefully.



Some of my favorite quotes from The Familiar:

"Language creates possibility. Sometimes by being used. Sometimes by being kept secret."

"Maybe there really was a demon inside her. One that craved feather beds and fine food and applause."

"I still meet grief in sudden places, when I least expect it. A familiar song. A smell from the kitchen. Then there it is. An enemy that can’t be bested."

"Who has more power in a house than the woman who stirs the soup and makes the bread and scrubs the floors, who fills the foot warmer with hot coals, and arranges your letters, and nurses your children?"

 It was an odyssey in and of itself to read this whole thing! But I did it in about a month and a half rather than twenty years, so take that Odysseus. Anywho---this truly is such a formative piece of literature, and to get the privilege to read and study the first version of it written by a woman makes it even better. I'll be teaching this particular translation to two groups of students in the fall at my university, and one group in the spring, and also see this as such a privilege. To engage meaningful conversation and thinking among students whose prior experience with this text may have been half-assing it in a high school English class is a challenge I'm eager to accept. Because wow, there is a crazy amount of relevancy in this ancient poem that translates to the world we're living in today. From the mistreatment of migrants, foreignors, and the unhoused, to the concept (and misconstruing) of hospitality, to the innate desire to just make it home, to the ever-human wonderment over what higher powers may be working and moving within the world and our lives, I honestly don't have enough time to talk about everything I want to in this tome within the span of a semester. What remains, though, is Odysseus' intrigue as a main character, hero/anit-hero figure, and enigma, even after reaching the 525th page. Not to mention how the poem ends on what seems like a pretty bad place to end such a long, epic, sweeping tale. I have lesson planning and further thinking to do on the complexities of this story and how it reflects and shapes human nature, but hooray for the opportunity to keep stretching and exercising my academic muscles! :)