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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