The Bottom Line: Lewis' tale will delight both readers with a background in mythology and those without--a fascinating and deep portrait of woman who dares pit herself against the powerful gods.

C. S. Lewis has a talent for delving back into the ages of mythology, reawakening ancient symbols, gods, creatures and stories through his literature. In "Till We Have Faces", Lewis weaves new threads into the tale of Cupid and Psyche with a sense of depth and power that resonates with contemporary readers.

Told through the first person, "Till We Have Faces" is the story of the life of Orual, the ugliest and "eldest daughter or Trom, King of Glome." Complex and passionate, she presents her story as a complaint against the injustice of "the gods". The gods, Orual claims, gave her a beautiful sister (Istra) that she loved and cared for more than anything in the world, only to take Istra away and cause Orual pain.

Istra and Orual grow up together in Glome (a most unlikely pair, the former being very beautiful and the latter repulsive), under the tutelage of the Fox (a Greek scholar captured by soldiers of Glome). As Orual's story unfolds, she deals with the burden of her ugliness, the pain of separation and death, and the weight of royal responsibility. The events of her life through her autobiographer (as it were) become not only a complaint against the gods, but a dialogue about the nature of love and the meaning of religious faith.

As Orual grows and develops into the complexity of her character, other main characters in the story--her father Trom, the Fox, her other sister Redival, and her trusted friend Bardia--speak into her life through their words and journeys together. These characters become vehicles for presenting the many different pictures of love: love as faithfulness, love as possessiveness, love as all-consuming, love as selflessness. Orual absorbs all of this into her overarching complaint--that the gods took away Istra, the only person she truly loved above all else.

Outside the city of Glome lies the temple of the goddess Ungit--a pervasive figure and influence throughout Orual's life. Through the characters of Bardia and the Fox, Lewis presents conflicting approaches to religious faith. This also Orual absorbs into herself, and becomes a synthesis of the two--the former being spiritual and intuitive, and the latter being skeptical and analytical. These characters and their thoughts have a profound influence on Orual's approach to the gods, and thus her manner of lodging complaint against them.

These undercurrents--love and faith--add to the depth of meaning and discovery in Orual's journey. The captivating story that unfolds paints clear, specific and fascinating portraits of the interactions of many characters (Bardia, Istra, Trom, and many others). With the richness of mythology as the primary inspiration for this book, Lewis achieves a sense of depth unparalleled in many writers of today. For those readers unfamiliar with the story of Cupid and Psyche, Lewis includes a note at the end of his book telling the basics of the story along with a comment on his central idea for changing it. This is a most helpful addition, and adds to the reading of the novel tremendously

Delightfully unpredictable, fantastically written, with beautiful descriptions and thoughtful (but unobtrusive) analysis of the nature of love and humanity's relation to the divine, this is the story of the coming-of-age of a soul.