Is there an audiobook of The Song of Achilles?

Yes. The Song of Achilles has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Frazer Douglas.

How long is the The Song of Achilles audiobook?

The The Song of Achilles audiobook runs 11 hr 15 min.

Is The Song of Achilles on Kindle Unlimited?

Yes. The Song of Achilles was included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on August 15, 2026.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller book cover for the Book of the Day mythology book review

Our score

4.6/ 5

Outstanding

Listen to The Song of Achilles free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

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EDITION PUBLISHEDMarch 2012

Genres

Fiction Mythology Folklore

Themes

Love and devotionFate and the cost of gloryIdentity and self-worthGrief and remembrance

The Song of Achilles

Name: The Song of Achilles
Price: 13.99 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Madeline Miller

Madeline Miller

Madeline Miller retells the Iliad through the eyes of Patroclus, the boy who loved Achilles, and turns the most famous war story in the world into an aching love story. It is myth made tender, and almost unbearably moving by its close.

The Review

Our take

Everyone knows how this ends. That is the strange power Madeline Miller works with in her debut: she takes a story whose conclusion has been fixed for three thousand years — the death of Achilles at Troy — and makes you hope, against everything, that it might somehow be avoided. She does it by handing the narration not to the golden hero but to Patroclus, an exiled, unremarkable prince who becomes Achilles's companion and the keeper of his heart.

From that single choice the whole novel draws its warmth. Patroclus is a watcher, gentle and self-doubting, and his voice gives us an Achilles we rarely get to see: not only the best of the Greeks, swift and lethal and impossibly proud, but a boy learning the lyre, a young man torn between glory and tenderness. Their bond grows slowly through boyhood on Phthia, through years of training with the centaur Chiron in the hills, and into something the gods and their parents would rather it not be. Miller writes desire and devotion with a clarity that never tips into excess, and the early chapters have the golden, suspended quality of remembered happiness.

Then Troy. The back half of the book tightens like a drawn bowstring as the war grinds on and the prophecy closes in. Miller stages the famous machinery of the Iliad — the quarrel with Agamemnon, the wrath of Achilles, the fateful loan of his armor — but always from the edges, through Patroclus's growing dread. The result is a retelling that earns its devastation honestly. Readers who want the sweep of battlefield epic should know that the war here is glimpsed and intimate rather than panoramic; this is a story about two people, and the army is the weather they live in.

What lingers is how completely Miller humanizes figures who have hardened into symbols. The petulant goddess Thetis, the canny Odysseus, the doomed princess Briseis — each is rendered with a novelist's eye for motive and contradiction. Thetis in particular is a quietly terrifying presence, a sea-goddess who regards her son's mortal lover with cold contempt, and the threat she poses gives the love story a constant undertow of dread. And beneath the mythology runs a deeply felt argument about what a life is worth: whether a short, blazing existence remembered forever can outweigh a longer, quieter one spent loving and being loved. The novel does not answer that question so much as break your heart with it.

Why you should read

You loved Circe or want Greek myth told from the inside
You want a tender, character-driven love story over battlefield epic
You don't mind knowing the ending if the telling is this good
You like clear, lyrical prose with real emotional payoff

What to expect

First-person narration by Patroclus
A slow-building romance that turns tragic
The Iliad glimpsed from its quiet edges
An emotionally devastating final act

If the prose occasionally reaches for the lyrical and the structure leans on a conclusion we already know, those are small prices. This is a debut of remarkable assurance, and its final pages are among the most affecting I have read in any retelling of the ancient world.

Reviewed by Rowan · How our reviews are written

Our verdict

4.6/ 5

Outstanding

Listen to The Song of Achilles free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

Included with Kindle Unlimited Buy on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Prices may vary.

Where to read or listen

Is there an audiobook of The Song of Achilles?: Yes. The Song of Achilles has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Frazer Douglas.
Listen to The Song of Achilles free with an Audible trial
We earn from qualifying Amazon purchases.
How long is the The Song of Achilles audiobook?: The The Song of Achilles audiobook runs 11 hr 15 min.
Is The Song of Achilles on Kindle Unlimited?: Yes. The Song of Achilles was included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on August 15, 2026.
How much does The Song of Achilles cost?: On Amazon: Kindle $13.99, Paperback $9.69, Hardcover $16.31. Prices as of August 26, 2026 at 3:46 AM EDT and may change.

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Common questions

What is The Song of Achilles about?: Everyone knows how this ends. That is the strange power Madeline Miller works with in her debut: she takes a story whose conclusion has been fixed for three thousand years — the death of Achilles at Troy — and makes you hope, against everything, that it might somehow be avoided. She does it by…
Is The Song of Achilles worth reading?: We scored The Song of Achilles 4.6 out of 5. Madeline Miller retells the Iliad through the eyes of Patroclus, the boy who loved Achilles, and turns the most famous war story in the world into an aching love story. It is myth made tender, and almost unbearably moving by its close.