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3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The message I get out of this book at the end is no different than the one I got from the very beginning - there is no agency for women in a violently patriarchal society. Ariadne does not seem to learn from the stories she preaches nor the lessons she has lived through herself which is disappointing. While it was exciting to read at times because I didn’t know much about Ariadne beyond the beginning of her myth involving the Minotaur/Labyrinth, I’m left wondering what the point of this book was.
If I hadn’t already read Miller’s Circe and Song of Achilles, I would have given 5 stars… and although this telling of Ariadne and the many women in these myths is deserved and dignified, Ariadne pales in comparison to Miller’s brilliance.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
4.5⭐️
“I would not let a man who knew the value of nothing make me doubt the value of myself.”
“I would not let a man who knew the value of nothing make me doubt the value of myself.”
the feminist novel we all needed
i love how men are portrayed in this because they aren’t all the same and they all have different flawed ways of approaching the place of women in society. The gods also have an interesting place in this as even the women among them are cruel, maybe even more than the men. I won’t put any spoilers here but i urge you to read it
i love how men are portrayed in this because they aren’t all the same and they all have different flawed ways of approaching the place of women in society. The gods also have an interesting place in this as even the women among them are cruel, maybe even more than the men. I won’t put any spoilers here but i urge you to read it
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Ariadne is based on the Greek myth of the same name. Ariadne was the daughter of King Minos, who helped Theseus defeat the minotaur and escape Crete. For her troubles, she is abandoned on an island by Theseus, and is noticed by Dionysus and the two fall in love.
This is not a myth I was overly familiar with, but I did know some of the basics before reading it. I bought this book on the back of reading and loving Circe and The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. I did already know and love the story of Achilles and Patroclus before reading The Song of Achilles. I'm not sure if having no such knowledge about the myth of Ariadne is what led to me not really enjoying the book as much as I hoped, or if it was something else, but either way I was disappointed by the result.
I think having read Miller's works previously did lead to me expecting a certain quality, a certain feel to the book, and while I think it does come across in some ways, it didn't really have the same effect on me as Miller's books do. Whereas Miller conveys the emotion and beauty so well in her writing, Jennifer Saint didn't really hit the mark for me in that respect. I feel it's unfair to really compare the two, as I'm sure most authors writing Greek myth re-tellings will get compared to Miller, but I have to be honest about why I bought the book and why I didn't enjoy it, and this forms part of my reasoning.
The book feels long. I read it quickly, but had I not had the time to just sit and read this may have taken me a long time to finish. I kept putting it down, bored with the text, wanting to pick up anything else. But I forced myself to keep reading and eventually it picked up a bit in the second half. I find that a lot with books I've read lately; they only really get going in the second half.
I could see some similarities with the author's writing and classic literature such as Homer's Odyssey. There were some mentions of the dawn in Ariadne which made me think of the many many references to the 'rosy-fingered' dawn in The Odyssey which so frustrated me when reading that book. Here, it doesn't frustrate, but just reminds you of the classics that came before, and I did enjoy that to some extent.
The characters felt a bit one-dimensional here, I must admit. Ariadne herself was perhaps the most well-developed, but even she seemed somewhat passive in her own story, only making a choice for herself at the beginning of the book and then sitting back and letting others be the agents of change for her until close to the end of the book. Phaedra was the headstrong one, and never really gets much outside of that part of her personality. Theseus chased his own fame. Dionysus ended up being fairly similar. You could argue that the Greek myths themselves give a one-dimensional impression of the characters, but you kind of expect that from them. In a re-telling I want more. A re-telling gives you licence to change things, to add to the base text, to make it your own, and while I feel that the author probably did make this her own and change things to suit the story she wanted to tell, it didn't really seem like the characters were as developed as I would have liked.
The plot did drag, as well. Much of the book follows Ariadne and Phaedra stuck in the situations they find themselves in, not really willing or able to do much to change this. For all of the talk of feminism, both characters don't really do much to change the situation they are in, and even then the changes they make revolve around the men in their life rather than themselves. There are some good points in here about feminism and about how the gods punished the women in Greek mythology for the actions of their husbands/fathers/sons, but outside of that there wasn't much that made me think 'this is a really good feminist novel'.
As mentioned before, Ariadne is quite passive in her own story. Her only assertiveness, her only control, is when she decides to help Theseus defeat the Minotaur and escape Crete, and then again when she makes a decision at the end of the book. I hoped for more from this book.
The pacing was slow, and by 200 pages in I was wondering if I'd made the right choice in deciding to continue reading this. In the end, I am glad I read it, but I was also very disappointed in this book. The characters felt flat and I was never really invested in any of them or what happened. For example, in The Song of Achilles, you feel so much for Patroclus and you are so invested in his love for Achilles that you are willing the story to be different, for their ending to be anything other than what it was. In Ariadne, I didn't much care what happened to her by the end of the book, and the ending she did get just made me even more disappointed in it in general.
Overall, I wouldn't really recommend this one if you are looking for a great feminist re-telling of the myth of Ariadne. It's not a bad book by any means, but I'm not sure I'll be seeking out any others by this author, no matter how enticing the covers may be (I'm looking at you, Elektra). If you haven't read Madeline Miller's books, or didn't like her books, then maybe this book might be for you - I'd say it's probably better to go in without any expectations about style, quality or content and just enjoy it for what it is, otherwise you may end up being disappointed like I was.
This is not a myth I was overly familiar with, but I did know some of the basics before reading it. I bought this book on the back of reading and loving Circe and The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. I did already know and love the story of Achilles and Patroclus before reading The Song of Achilles. I'm not sure if having no such knowledge about the myth of Ariadne is what led to me not really enjoying the book as much as I hoped, or if it was something else, but either way I was disappointed by the result.
I think having read Miller's works previously did lead to me expecting a certain quality, a certain feel to the book, and while I think it does come across in some ways, it didn't really have the same effect on me as Miller's books do. Whereas Miller conveys the emotion and beauty so well in her writing, Jennifer Saint didn't really hit the mark for me in that respect. I feel it's unfair to really compare the two, as I'm sure most authors writing Greek myth re-tellings will get compared to Miller, but I have to be honest about why I bought the book and why I didn't enjoy it, and this forms part of my reasoning.
The book feels long. I read it quickly, but had I not had the time to just sit and read this may have taken me a long time to finish. I kept putting it down, bored with the text, wanting to pick up anything else. But I forced myself to keep reading and eventually it picked up a bit in the second half. I find that a lot with books I've read lately; they only really get going in the second half.
I could see some similarities with the author's writing and classic literature such as Homer's Odyssey. There were some mentions of the dawn in Ariadne which made me think of the many many references to the 'rosy-fingered' dawn in The Odyssey which so frustrated me when reading that book. Here, it doesn't frustrate, but just reminds you of the classics that came before, and I did enjoy that to some extent.
The characters felt a bit one-dimensional here, I must admit. Ariadne herself was perhaps the most well-developed, but even she seemed somewhat passive in her own story, only making a choice for herself at the beginning of the book and then sitting back and letting others be the agents of change for her until close to the end of the book. Phaedra was the headstrong one, and never really gets much outside of that part of her personality. Theseus chased his own fame. Dionysus ended up being fairly similar. You could argue that the Greek myths themselves give a one-dimensional impression of the characters, but you kind of expect that from them. In a re-telling I want more. A re-telling gives you licence to change things, to add to the base text, to make it your own, and while I feel that the author probably did make this her own and change things to suit the story she wanted to tell, it didn't really seem like the characters were as developed as I would have liked.
The plot did drag, as well. Much of the book follows Ariadne and Phaedra stuck in the situations they find themselves in, not really willing or able to do much to change this. For all of the talk of feminism, both characters don't really do much to change the situation they are in, and even then the changes they make revolve around the men in their life rather than themselves. There are some good points in here about feminism and about how the gods punished the women in Greek mythology for the actions of their husbands/fathers/sons, but outside of that there wasn't much that made me think 'this is a really good feminist novel'.
As mentioned before, Ariadne is quite passive in her own story. Her only assertiveness, her only control, is when she decides to help Theseus defeat the Minotaur and escape Crete, and then again when she makes a decision at the end of the book. I hoped for more from this book.
The pacing was slow, and by 200 pages in I was wondering if I'd made the right choice in deciding to continue reading this. In the end, I am glad I read it, but I was also very disappointed in this book. The characters felt flat and I was never really invested in any of them or what happened. For example, in The Song of Achilles, you feel so much for Patroclus and you are so invested in his love for Achilles that you are willing the story to be different, for their ending to be anything other than what it was. In Ariadne, I didn't much care what happened to her by the end of the book, and the ending she did get just made me even more disappointed in it in general.
Overall, I wouldn't really recommend this one if you are looking for a great feminist re-telling of the myth of Ariadne. It's not a bad book by any means, but I'm not sure I'll be seeking out any others by this author, no matter how enticing the covers may be (I'm looking at you, Elektra). If you haven't read Madeline Miller's books, or didn't like her books, then maybe this book might be for you - I'd say it's probably better to go in without any expectations about style, quality or content and just enjoy it for what it is, otherwise you may end up being disappointed like I was.