Review: Ariadne

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a wonderful re-telling and has claimed all the love I expected to have for Circe.

Most people know the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, but few will remember Ariadne and what became of her. (I certainly intend to get lost down the Google hole of this particular lady after writing this review.) This wonderful novel explores the lady's decision to betray her family and the consequences of her actions. I thought it would focus mostly on those known events, yet this story sprawls across years (and myths) and tells a wonderfully rich tale of love, life and sacrifice.

I loved how this was written, and the honesty of Ariadne's character. She struck me as quite real, and I easily came to know her. I enjoyed her character development, though it did seem to drift a little towards the end.

The characters are rich and detailed and so easy to picture. Particularly as a woman seeing through Ariadne's eyes, I found the heroes of the story quite detestable and understood her feelings towards them, and theirs towards others. Phaedra was also a fierce character that blazed on the page. It honestly was a pleasure getting to know these two fierce females.

The story was longer and more sprawling than I anticipated, but I found myself easily won over by the references to other myths. There is plenty here for the lovers of Greek mythology and, as I said, I fully intend to give myself over to Google for a while to explore these stories further.

This was a well crafted novel with some great themes, well explored through the eyes of one of mythology's many underrated females. I enjoyed it a lot, and definitely recommend to lovers of retold myths.

Also ... it's like, 100% better than Circe.

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Review: Sea of Tranquility

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an Inception level conundrum!

-Emily St John Mandel writes a novel about a pandemic
-Writes new novel about a Ponzi scheme
-Pandemic hits
-Pandemic novel returns to popularity
-ESJM writes new novel about:
● Pandemics
● Characters from Ponzi scheme book
● An author who wrote a novel about a pandemic
● Which becomes more popular as a pandemic hits
● Time travel

And of course it's brilliant.

Honestly, the AUDACITY.

This is my third read from this author and I am in awe of the way she captivates me so completely. The stories never even feel that big or complicated but there is a beauty in the way they are woven and I always find myself mulling over things a lot more than usual.

Obviously, a lot of this hits home quite hard, because everyone in the world now understands what it's like to live during a pandemic. So there's a lot here that allows for reflection and some interesting diverting pathways from the basic chaos of it. I really enjoyed the way it was written - it doesn't overwhelm too much, doesn't dwell on the hardships, and provides the interesting time travel angle to distract.

Characters from other stories once again appear here, and it's a clever way to have you reading her other novels. I loved revisiting people I already knew, and it makes me want to go back and re-read those other novels in case I missed anything!

The concept of the story is really clever and the language is beautiful as always. If you've been impressed by her previous work, this one shouldn't treat you any differently.

Highly recommend.

With thanks to Macmillan for a copy

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