Reviews with content warning for Pregnancy - Ariadne

Updated review (July 2024):

Rating: 4/5 stars

Ariadne is a princess of Crete when she helps Theseus defeat the minotaur, setting in motion a series of events that will alter the rest of her life.

This was a reread for me, and I really enjoyed it both times! In my first read, I remember disliking the ending, and this time around I understand it more but still find it abysmally sad, hence my rating remaining at 4 stars. That said, the writing here is impeccable, and I love the story structure and alternating chapters from Ariadne and Phaedra’s perspectives. I also feel like this is told in a very approachable way and is easy to understand even without much background context.

This is also super fast paced (I listened to the audiobook in just a couple sittings) and Ariadne is a top tier heroine for me. Thoroughly enjoyed, and a fantastic July pick from my book club!

CW: Death, including animal and child death; sexual violence/mentions of assault; suicide; misogyny/sexism; pregnancy/motherhood

Original rating (August 2021): 4/5 stars

Content Warnings

clovetra's review

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adventurous challenging medium-paced

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

2.0

idk how to feel about this book. honestly i think im becoming a bit… disillusioned with greek mythology retellings at the moment. i honestly think they swing big and either really succeed or meander. and i would say this book follows the later.

i really couldn’t connect with this book at all. the ending felt rushed, and after the minotaur story was completed, the story felt as if it was floundering. obviously the entire book can’t be about life at crete but the fact it barely even covered 100 pages really let this book down.

ariadne was at best a blank slate to narrate the tales of dionysus, and at worst was incredibly boring and annoying. i understand her naivety is fundamental to her story but it was overdone 200 pages in, and by the end i was over her.

phaedra was kind of likeable i guess. i enjoyed her at the beginning, but as soon as her story moved to her & hippolyta, she became insufferable. seriously when

her & ariadne were fighting over hippolyta

i didn’t agree with either of them. her ending also felt rushed and she lacked any depth being her impulsivity and brash nature.

dionysus was boring as well. he seemed to be all over the place with his characterisation, and his ending felt like it against everything earlier set up in the book. i get that was kind of the point but from a reader’s perspective it’s just a tad stupid.

i also think i became disillusioned with saint’s writing style by the end. to begin with i loved her descriptions and her poetic way of writing, but after the 20th sentence telling us that women always pay the price for a man’s crime i was over it. this book felt like it was going in circles constantly.

now you might ask - why did i finish this? because i own a copy of this, and i was curious to see if it could redeem itself the more it progressed. i don’t like to DNF books i own - if its a library or ebook sure she’s going in the DNF pile. but i paid $26 for this i was finishing it either way. and yet why didn’t i give this a 1-star? because i was still curious to see where this went. i wasn’t invested in the characters but i was invested in where things would go.

idk i don’t think i had too much fun reading this. the beginning was intriguing, but after ariadne’s arrival at noxus the book fizzled away. and also the ending was dumb, anticlimatic and yet again rushed.

i will defo be taking a break from retellings for a while after this one!

Content Warnings

noragoudie's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

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

3.75

This book is my favorite of the two I have read by Jennifer Saint, but it falls into the same traps. Once again, the prose is beautiful and the backdrop and immersion into Greek mythology is masterfully done. However, strong female characters are built up only to make foolish decisions that feel neither intriguing nor thought provoking. So much potential, but the execution leaves something to be desired.

Content Warnings

tmholsman_1994's review against another edition

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adventurous dark sad slow-paced

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

3.25

I really wanted to like this book because I love Greek mythology, but I honestly did not like it. I found it a little hard to get into at first and then I started to enjoy it, but then when I looked up the myth of Ariadne I started to not really enjoy this version of the myth. It doesn't really divert from the original myth, which is fine, but sometimes I want something more than just reading a 300 page book telling me about what happened to her. I liked the detail we got about what happened to her on Naxos before Dionysus came back to his island, but in my opinion I would have rather had a modern retelling than just the myth told over.

Content Warnings

hannah_hodges's review

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
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

3.0

Reading this book made me update my content warnings afterwards haha! I enjoyed learning about the two sisters and the heroes/gods they were tangled up with. This isn’t a comment on the writing style, as I thought Saint told the story well, but reading Ariadne and Phaedra’s story and seeing it unravel was a bit like watching a car crash - horrifying but you can’t really look away. I thought the experience of Postpartum Depression was very well written, especially in contrast to the other character’s experience of motherhood. I raced through reading this book and I think it was good to stretch outside my comfort zone and read a sad/emotional/dark book (not my vibe at all lol) but I’ll be paying more attention to content warnings and mood in the future!

Content Warnings

kfergy's review against another edition

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dark relaxing medium-paced

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

4.0

Enjoyable read - definitely a good fit for those familiar with Greek mythology and always wanted a bit more context to the parables. Good reflection upon traditional femininity and independence, though the ending doesn't necessarily leave you inspired (it's not supposed to)

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