A review by mtstellens
Atalanta by Jennifer Saint

3.0

I think I just don't love the way Jennifer Saint writes these, they always lead me to wanting more. They need to be longer and richer. She chooses these stories that are so long and tapestry like and they always end up seeming dull to me. I want more between the characters, more moments to illustrate the relationships. I think that Artemis and Atalanta is the most fleshed out relationship and the most complex, it was really well done, I only wish that the others were just as good. Then again, those two are also the most complex characters. Medea and Hypsipyle were also interesting, had complicated motivations and helped to add to the themes of independence and marriage, but neither had that many conversations with Atalanta. The men were mostly cardboard. I understand that this was not a story ABOUT men, but WITH men. THe issue is that because of that, I didn’t even really understand why Atalanta chose the man she did to marry, he seemed pretty close to the first man she slept with on the Argos. It was kinda a let down. The endings of all of Saint’s books are also so abrupt. It always feels so rushed at the end, I know it may not be totally true to the myth but I think there needs to be some way to extend the ending to not feel so out of place. It's weird that in no time at all Atalanta has chosen to lose her race, to run away with her new husband, find and decorate a temple, and gets turned into a lion. Yeah, all of her books are very poorly paced, that's the major issue I keep coming back to.