This book is a study of female mobility in Greek myth. K. considers a series of examples of the mobility of both goddesses and mortal women, with an eye to the implications for the study of women's mobility in ancient Greece, both in social ideology and in the reality of women's lives. K. finds that both goddesses and mortal heroines are mobile – but only within certain parameters. Mortal women, in particular, hit a ‘glass wall’ that restricts their mobility, preventing their access to civic spaces.

K. begins with a lengthy introduction, covering the problematic area of gendered space and female mobility in current scholarship. The centre of the book is divided into two parts. The first (Chapters 1–2), focused on epic and archaic sources, deals with the mobility of goddesses, and the question of whether their mobility (or lack of it) is governed by their sexuality (or lack of it): are virgin goddesses more restricted than those who are wives and mothers? K. discusses six goddesses, dividing them into two groups. Virgin goddesses (Hestia, Athena, Artemis) are discussed in Chapter 1, and ‘Olympian wives and mothers’ (Aphrodite, Demeter, Hera) in Chapter 2. Aphrodite sits oddly in the ‘wives and mothers’ category, particularly since the two examples of her movement that K. discusses in detail are both motivated by adultery (the adultery with Ares in Demodocus’ story in Odyssey 8 and her seduction of Anchises in Hom. H. Aph.). The distinction is rooted in modern scholarship's interpretation of the differing degrees of freedom accorded to the parthenos as opposed to older and/or married women, but, as K. points out, it does not hold for goddesses, whose mobility is defined rather by the roles that they occupy – an idea that might have been further explored. Athena and Artemis are free to move as they like, but their destinations differ: Athena, whose interests tend to be centred around interactions with mortals, rarely frequents the mountains and uninhabited spaces that Artemis prefers for the hunt. Hestia and Hera, to varying degrees, are less mobile, but K. argues that their immobility does not derive from their female gender: whereas Hera's occasional immobility indicates her status as ruler and Zeus’ consort, Hestia's fixity derives from her place at the core of the oikos. In Hestia's case, this is only partially true: her attachment to the hearth restrains her movements, but her gender does also reflect the identification of women with the oikos. Lack of mobility may also be determined by circumstances: while K. may be right in suggesting that Demeter's sojourn in her temple, isolated from the other gods, may evoke the fixity of a cult statue, it is also tempting to see this (and K.’s other examples) as a deliberate withdrawal to indicate displeasure at a slight to one's honour – in effect, a prolonged sulk (compare Achilles). If mobility is defined by a deity's sphere of influence, then lack of it arguably indicates a potentially dangerous refusal to fulfil his or her obligations.

The way in which goddesses move is also interesting. As K. notes, Persephone in H. Dem. only moves in a chariot – and therefore only in the company of others. That also means that she only moves at others’ will and does not undertake any travel of her own (the chariot in question belongs to Hades). The chariot also plays into the wedding iconography applied to the abduction in some Apulian vases (against K., I do not think these show a later episode in the myth). Further discussion around the methods of movement would be fruitful; for example, the verb αἴσσω recurs frequently in K.’s examples, used both for goddesses (in flight and not) and for mortals (e.g. the daughters of Keleos ἤιξαν to Demeter, H. Dem. 177), and its use would be worth exploring.

The second part, focused primarily on tragedy, deals with mortal heroines. Chapter 3 is largely focused on Io and the Danaids in Aeschylus’ Suppliants and Prometheus Bound, whose stories entail ‘large-scale mobility’ (long and complex journeys) but embed these journeys within a framework of ‘small-scale mobility’: the departure of the bride from the paternal house. K. distinguishes between centrifugal movement, away from the hearth, and centripetal movement towards it. Io's small-scale mobility in Prometheus Bound is characterised as a centrifugal movement. K. has an illuminating discussion of the foreign Danaids’ manipulation of Io's myth to present their own travels as a centripetal movement towards Argos, thus staking a claim for incorporation into both the polis and the Hellenic identity it represents. Medea would have been an interesting case study for this section, as a foreign woman whose movements are also governed by marriage.

Chapter 4 discusses two groups of women who seem to demonstrate an exceptional degree of mobility, maenads and huntresses. K. considers maenads through the lens of Euripides’ Bacchae, noting the different patterns of mobility of the Theban maenads and those who accompanied Dionysus from Lydia, and using this as a basis for a discussion of gendered space (both topographical and ritual), as maenadic mobility expands to encompass a degree of flux in their surroundings. The section on huntresses is more problematic. As K. notes, classical evidence is lacking; her solution is to draw upon a range of sources, both Greek and Roman, thus coming perilously close to a structuralist approach that she has decried in the introduction. K.’s use of Ovid to supplement her discussion of Atalanta is a case in point, especially since some of her analysis is specific to this particular text. Nonetheless, I agree with K.’s conclusions in this section, that mortal huntresses show a mobility similar to that of Artemis, but are ultimately limited in time and space: even those women who appear most free of limits on their mobility are still restricted in comparison to their male equivalents.

The two parts thus differ not only in content, but also in sources and in terms of how K. constructs and interprets mobility in each; this is a strength, showing just how flexible the concepts K. is working with can be. Chapter 5 and the conclusion frame the discussion of female mobility and gendered spaces within Greek social ideology, using the modern metaphor of the ‘glass wall’ – a concept I would have liked to have seen applied earlier in the book. K. is well aware of the difficulties inherent in using mythical texts as evidence for social practice, an undercurrent throughout the book, and while her approach is rightly tentative, it is hard to argue with her conclusions as to how social ideology informs the mobility of women in Greek myth.

As noted above, the book opens up as many questions as it answers, leaving plenty of space for further debate and discussion. In spite of its brevity, however, this is a thought-provoking contribution for both students and scholars working in the areas of myth, culture and gender, and a timely reminder that female mobility was less curtailed than is often tacitly assumed.