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A review by lyakimov
Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
2.0
This book was so slow and boring. A snooze fest at its finest. I don't know why this book is described as a feminist retelling of Ariadne and Phaedra because it is not. Their whole lives are decided by men and they just glide through the story without making their mark or doing something important, like they say they do. They lie and say they are girlbossing it up but in reality they make absolutely no decisions and are practically robots. Both girls just become housewives and they don't really have much character development. Their characters seem so stunted and confused because we go through the years of their lives so fast that it just fast-forwards their growth and within a chapter we are supposed to accept that they act like this now, they do this now because of the character growth and experiences they've had that we have NEVER SEEN. It's telling, not showing.
Also, the ending was so confusing and barely made sense to me. I am just going to choose to ignore it because I really did not care, I was so apathetic. Going through all this random conflict with Ariadne and Dionysus in the last 3 chapters was ridiculous but somehow on par with the haphazard pacing. Reading this book felt like dredging through thick mud. It was like the plot was undecided and there was no true direction of where this story was supposed to go. I should have just read Ariadne's Wikipedia article instead of reading this. Also, Part I and Part II of the book are so disconnected that I completely forgot where the girls were from, I forgot the Minotaur existed, by the end of the book. It was randomly mentioned near the end and I was so shocked because I had completely forgotten the first half of the story. Maybe because I felt like I had aged 15 years like the sisters.
I'm not a history buff but I've taken Latin so of course I have heard some of the myths so these types of books interest me. Unfortunately I have not yet read one of these books that has actually interested me, impressed me, or shown me something new. People in their reviews of this book talk about how this is nothing like Madeline Miller's books and honestly? This book is exactly like her books! In this book and Millers', there is no plot and the characters read like they have been carved out of a stone tablet -- two-dimensional. However, I am still interested in reading another of Saint's books because her prose is very good and I think this was her debut so I am sure she has gotten better with plot and pacing. The story of Ariadne is also kind of a difficult one because after the Minotaur ordeal, nothing really happens with her, she just chills on an island for her whole life and Phaedra just chills in a palace so I am sure it was very challenging to even try to find anything to turn into a plot so I applaud Saint for that. I definitely could not write a mythology-based book like this.
Also, the ending was so confusing and barely made sense to me. I am just going to choose to ignore it because I really did not care, I was so apathetic. Going through all this random conflict with Ariadne and Dionysus in the last 3 chapters was ridiculous but somehow on par with the haphazard pacing. Reading this book felt like dredging through thick mud. It was like the plot was undecided and there was no true direction of where this story was supposed to go. I should have just read Ariadne's Wikipedia article instead of reading this. Also, Part I and Part II of the book are so disconnected that I completely forgot where the girls were from, I forgot the Minotaur existed, by the end of the book. It was randomly mentioned near the end and I was so shocked because I had completely forgotten the first half of the story. Maybe because I felt like I had aged 15 years like the sisters.
I'm not a history buff but I've taken Latin so of course I have heard some of the myths so these types of books interest me. Unfortunately I have not yet read one of these books that has actually interested me, impressed me, or shown me something new. People in their reviews of this book talk about how this is nothing like Madeline Miller's books and honestly? This book is exactly like her books! In this book and Millers', there is no plot and the characters read like they have been carved out of a stone tablet -- two-dimensional. However, I am still interested in reading another of Saint's books because her prose is very good and I think this was her debut so I am sure she has gotten better with plot and pacing. The story of Ariadne is also kind of a difficult one because after the Minotaur ordeal, nothing really happens with her, she just chills on an island for her whole life and Phaedra just chills in a palace so I am sure it was very challenging to even try to find anything to turn into a plot so I applaud Saint for that. I definitely could not write a mythology-based book like this.