Galatea by Madeline Miller
This is actually a short story but it’s available as a digital “book,” so I’m including a review.
Like Miller’s The Song of Achilles, this story retells an ancient story. Here, she takes on the Pygmalion myth and tells it from the statue’s point of view.
What a fascinating study. The statue, brought to life by her maker’s prayers, has feelings and needs of her own. The sculptor doesn’t honor anything but his own desires, and they are lustful to the point of repulsion.
When she discovers that he has carved another statue of a young girl, she recognizes the girl as her daughter…and knows the fate that awaits the girl in the sculptor’s bedchamber. Her final sacrifice saves the girl from life while providing her with the release she so desperately wants from her semi-human life.