January 2021 Monthly Motif Reading Challenge: Once Upon a Time

I posted about this challenge back in 2019, and I did it that year, last year (2020), and am planning to do this year. I fell off posting my reviews in 2019, and totally ignored posting last year. Maybe this year is the year!

The theme for this month is "Once Upon a Time," which is explained as "Read a book from the Fantasy, Fairytale, Mythology, or Folklore Sub Genres."

I just finished my challenge book for January, which was Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, by C.S. Lewis. Lewis takes the myth of Cupid and Psyche and retells it from the perspective of Psyche's oldest sister. To be honest, I wasn't really familiar with the original story, so I had to look it up to get grounding for what I was reading (though once I got there, I realized the original story was already written down for reference at the end of the book). The book was compelling, an easy read, though not simplistic. Lewis has an educated style, and you see it in this book. However, it does not make the book difficult to read or too high-brow for any average reader.

I would place it in the fantasy genre, and I especially like that he takes a woman as his voice. I even feel like he gets the voice pretty well, considering that he is a man without experience in a woman's shoes. There aren't too many hints at his Christian views in the book until you reach the very end. Even then, I think the hints that are there would mostly be noticed by people with Christian views or experience themselves. I found it interesting, as a post-evangelical/post-Christian person, because my evangelical friends always championed Lewis as such a great apologist for Christianity. In the last chapter of this book, there are most definitely glimpses of a universalist view of salvation and spirituality. I may not have noticed it before seminary, but I was fortunate to learn about universalism there and discovered my own interest in it. Thus, it was pleasantly surprising to see Lewis placing pre-Christian spirituality in a place that can cooperate with Christian spirituality.

All in all, it's definitely worth a read if you enjoy retellings of classic myths, if you enjoy fantasy genres with strong female leads, and/or if you enjoy pondering spirituality and its different manifestations over the centuries.

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