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A review by acouplereadss
Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
adventurous
dark
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Ariadne, Princess of Crete is fond of dancing and enjoys listening to her nursemaids stories of gods and heroes. Beneath her golden palace the echo of her brothers hooftbeats can be heard. The Minotaur, a monster who demands a blood sacrifice. Theseus, Prince of Athens, travels to Crete to vanquish the beast once and for all. Ariadne and Theseus create a plan to kill her brother, but will betraying her family ensure her happiness?
I wish I was here to tell you how much I loved this book but unfortunately that’s not the case. Ariadne had me captured at the beginning. The writing was captivating and the storyline moved quickly. But only at first. Soon the book plummeted and was a slaughter worse than The Minotaur’s death.
This book promises a feminist retelling of Ariadne’s story. That fell short within the first bit of the book. Poor Ariadne was neither the star of her own novel nor was she a strong feminist character. Ariadne instead spent most of the novel listening to men share their rants about their glory and spent the rest of the time wailing on an island and never learning from her mistakes. But my biggest qualm was her sisters perspective. Never have I witnessed such a massacre of a character. Never have I seen such backwards character development. Never have I had a book go from 5 stars to 2 stars in a single page. The plot was drab. The characters were poorly written. And frankly, we’ve had enough mythology written from a man’s perspective where women are there to listen and birth children. I expected much more from Saint to deliver us a powerful story that uplifted women.
The best part about this book was reading it with @cozyinthenook. Our running commentary got us through and honestly I’d rather read our commentary. The only thing saving this one from a 1 star rating is the writing and the fact that I read it very quickly, 2✨.
I wish I was here to tell you how much I loved this book but unfortunately that’s not the case. Ariadne had me captured at the beginning. The writing was captivating and the storyline moved quickly. But only at first. Soon the book plummeted and was a slaughter worse than The Minotaur’s death.
This book promises a feminist retelling of Ariadne’s story. That fell short within the first bit of the book. Poor Ariadne was neither the star of her own novel nor was she a strong feminist character. Ariadne instead spent most of the novel listening to men share their rants about their glory and spent the rest of the time wailing on an island and never learning from her mistakes. But my biggest qualm was her sisters perspective. Never have I witnessed such a massacre of a character. Never have I seen such backwards character development. Never have I had a book go from 5 stars to 2 stars in a single page. The plot was drab. The characters were poorly written. And frankly, we’ve had enough mythology written from a man’s perspective where women are there to listen and birth children. I expected much more from Saint to deliver us a powerful story that uplifted women.
The best part about this book was reading it with @cozyinthenook. Our running commentary got us through and honestly I’d rather read our commentary. The only thing saving this one from a 1 star rating is the writing and the fact that I read it very quickly, 2✨.