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A review by purple_reads
Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
adventurous
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
I think if I were into mythology retellings more then this book would’ve been a lot more enjoyable for me. I went into this book not knowing the myth, aside from basic Minotaur knowledge, so I assumed it wouldn’t be too predictable. But, it still fell flat.
The writing was quite good but at the same time really confusing. I’m not sure how to even go about describing it. There were moments when I was like “Yass, that was beautiful” and then others that would have me very confused because it just didn’t make any sense. The author has an obsession with using the phrase “in my breast”. Each time I read the words, they made me increasingly want to throw the book. It’s like they thought they sounded “fancy” so they wanted to use them as much as they could. A few times, the book moved quite suddenly without a lot of explanation. It would just be “oh shit, we’re here now”. Especially with the ending, which felt more like shock factor than anything. There was just no build up for the last twenty pages. Suddenly, we were just there. And maybe that’s just because it’s a mythology retelling, so there’s a different vibe, but I really wasn’t that into it. There’s also some weird time jump thing going on between the two POV’s and within the chapters themselves - sometimes within a few lines or paragraphs. I usually don't mind this style of writing, but it wasn’t very clear.
The characters themselves weren’t too bad. The main two, Ariadne and her sister Phaedra (who is barely a focal point of the synopsis, yet a big part of the story), undergo some good character development. Personally, I found Phaedra to be the more interesting character and I would’ve loved more of her chapters as I often found Ariadne’s to be quite dull. However, the male characters are treat differently, in that we hear about them in too much verbose. And yes, I do think the author does a good job at using their actions to describe their personality, but it just felt as though we were being dumped with page long speech by them that wasn’t always needed - which got quite tiring during the first half of the book.
Stars ~ 2.5
The writing was quite good but at the same time really confusing. I’m not sure how to even go about describing it. There were moments when I was like “Yass, that was beautiful” and then others that would have me very confused because it just didn’t make any sense. The author has an obsession with using the phrase “in my breast”. Each time I read the words, they made me increasingly want to throw the book. It’s like they thought they sounded “fancy” so they wanted to use them as much as they could. A few times, the book moved quite suddenly without a lot of explanation. It would just be “oh shit, we’re here now”. Especially with the ending, which felt more like shock factor than anything. There was just no build up for the last twenty pages. Suddenly, we were just there. And maybe that’s just because it’s a mythology retelling, so there’s a different vibe, but I really wasn’t that into it. There’s also some weird time jump thing going on between the two POV’s and within the chapters themselves - sometimes within a few lines or paragraphs. I usually don't mind this style of writing, but it wasn’t very clear.
The characters themselves weren’t too bad. The main two, Ariadne and her sister Phaedra (who is barely a focal point of the synopsis, yet a big part of the story), undergo some good character development. Personally, I found Phaedra to be the more interesting character and I would’ve loved more of her chapters as I often found Ariadne’s to be quite dull. However, the male characters are treat differently, in that we hear about them in too much verbose. And yes, I do think the author does a good job at using their actions to describe their personality, but it just felt as though we were being dumped with page long speech by them that wasn’t always needed - which got quite tiring during the first half of the book.
Stars ~ 2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide