Ariadne - Jennifer Saint
I had a pretty ok time with this actually. I'm pretty invested into these mythological retellings - I still think that Madeline Miller set the bar very high for me. I have no idea if she was the first to start this trend but honestly I'm here for it. I feel like I have equal pros and cons for this book which is actually nice too, this was a pretty well-rounded read (considering that I've been fluctuating between 5 ⭐ and 0 ⭐ reads these past few days, it's kind of nice just to have a chill book with parts that I liked and disliked).
It's interesting to have the dual POV between Ariadne and her sister. It's not so interesting that they had this weird lack of agency going on. I didn't dislike them as character per se but there wasn't really anything to write home about either. Generally this kinda stuck to the standard that often comes to these retellings 'women suffer, men are celebrated', which while being on brand for mythology it does make me a bit restless to have something more ? Phaedra's death did get a bit of a rise out of me, her realization about what she really wanted out of life was very tragic but weirdly I didn't find Ariadne's death...poignant? It felt like it was a tragedy for tragedy's sake at this point.
I also did not like that before Phaedra's death she goes through some hardcore character assassination... Another case where the deviation from myth took away a lot of the oomph. For a large portion of the book we see Phaedra grow a backbone... before it's forcibly removed when if Saint had stuck to the usual depiction of what Phaedra does after she's spurred by Hippolytus, more of her agency would have remained. Hell, it would have even been interesting to have one of these main characters not be so meek. Would have loved if there was more focus on their mother too! She's Circe's sister and a fucking sick witch, I'd have killed for more with her.
I'm a bit let down because I really do enjoy the various tellings about Dionysus and Ariadne - including the version I thought that Saint was going to go with. The depiction I like best and feel fits novelization best is that rather than being turned into a constellation, she is deified like his mother following her death. I don't know, I just didn't really buy into this depiction of Dionysus. Why did he have this strangely secretive nature? It didn't work for me really, we all know what Dionysus should be like and this was like a strange softboi version until surprise! He's an actual Greek God! I just didn't...understand all this. I'm mostly just disappointed because Dionysus is one of my favourite Greek Gods, this could have been a really cool dynamic with Ariadne if it was taken in a different direction, exploring the darker aspects of what the God of reveltry stands for.
Pacing was fine for the most part but it felt like large parts of the story were quickly sped through while other parts lingered endlessly, writing was easy to get into and spend the day reading. I felt it was really starting to drag a bit towards the end. :Yawn: I think it's because I could have likely experienced something similar if I just...browsed the internet. 90% of this book is just straight up the myths with no real spin on it, kinda unimaginative, just having Ariadne be told stuff. Very heavy on the exposition and general regurgitation. I can't think of anything really that stood out to me particularly or anything quotable.
So yeah, not good, not bad. A fun work read while I killed some time.
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