Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - Ariadne

I really enjoyed this book! I listened to the audiobook and I thought it was really good. This story is a simple retelling of some women of Greek mythology, and I kept having to stop myself mid book so I wouldn’t go check Wikipedia for what happened to these characters before I read it in this book. It was intriguing and had some strong themes throughout; it definitely had a moral to the story and gave me some things to think about, but it was a little shallow in its storytelling. Like others have mentioned, it didn’t show much, only told you straight out what happened. But I enjoyed listening to it and want to dive back into Greek mythologies and retellings!

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camiclarkbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Jennifer Saint’s “Ariadne” is a beautiful retelling of the Ariadne myth.

The pacing is slow but steady, enough to keep the reader’s engaged but calm while the tense parts of the myth are spread out.

The ending of “Ariadne” was not one that I was familiar with but suited this interpretation nicely.

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cosmiccarnellian's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

Inconsistent pace
The exposition is too long
The main plot feels rushed mostly because of the 2 alternating pov

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nialiversuch's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

I've read a couple feminist/women focused retellings (Circe, The Witch's Heart) and Ariadne is the weakest of them. I liked it overall, but it felt like the interesting aspects were not as detailed as other aspects. I was hoping for a story about the sisters being the focus, but the romantic love was more heavily the focus. I understand that we need to see these terrible dudes/gods for what they are and how they force the hands of the women in these tales (how women are used/abused in these myths and legends), but I really wish the sisters were given more of a personality than what we got. It seemed like even though this was supposed to be female focused, the dudes in here were still given more depth, character, and story significance than our actual main women. I'm sure it's difficult to build on characters that we didn't get much from before like the male characters of these stories who we all have baseline knowledge of if we know any Greek mythology, but I feel the women were just given very generic and flat personalities. Ariadne's character and Phaedra's character had so much potential in the beginning but by the end, they were letdowns. This could've been great, but it fell short on a lot of parts for me.

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vivivi's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Wow okay um. So that was...an Ending. I don't know the story of Ariadne, so I came into this with a blank slate. It was an interesting journey.

I like how the role of women in the Greek myths was addressed throughout. Kind of hard not to see it, considering it's from their perspective. It managed to poke at how women had the short end of the stick while still breathing life into all the characters.

Their mistakes, hopes, and despair are shown in full colour. There was no shying away from it in this telling of their story.

If you're here for a happy ending between a god and a mortal, this is not for you. But if you don't mind a bit of tragedy as you would expect from a Greek myth, then this is great! Everybody dies in the end! I can't fault it for being what it is, even though I usually avoid sad endings.

I love Ariadne dumping Dionysus at the end. Didn't think I'd say that at the start, but seeing their relationship go in the direction that it did gave me a change of heart.

And his arrogance caused the deaths of so many babies, and the breaking of so many women... Ariadne's final conclusion of how once again, it was the women who suffered... Dionysius's actions proved it all.

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bestienicoley's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

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