Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

33 reviews

ibjilln's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Gaslighting

Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Incest, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Suicide, Toxic relationship, and War

hannahbailey's review against another edition

challenging sad slow-paced

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

2.0

I went into this excited to read a Greek myth feminist retelling that WASN'T about the Trojan war and instead focused on Ariadne, sister of the Minotaur and traitor to her family. After trudging through (barely) the clunky prose I was disappointed to discover this portrayal of Ariadne as passive and boring. I kept persisting with the hope that she would either become more interesting or begin her revenge arc, but she did neither. As I'd not read about this myth before I was interested to find out how it ended, and it seemed to be leading somewhere empowering (finally!) for Ariadne. Jokes on me, I was wrong again. The ending left me unsatisfied and a bit speechless tbh. I could go on but to spare you the pain, if you're struggling to get through this, it doesn't get better -- sorry 🤷‍♀️😔

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Misogyny, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Slavery, Suicide, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment, and Alcohol

volleymollie's review against another edition

emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Confinement, Blood, and Grief

Moderate: Child death and Rape

nialiversuch's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Alcohol, War, and Injury/Injury detail

aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Infidelity, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Blood, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Moderate: Confinement, Sexism, and Grief

Minor: Rape

gillian_aftanas's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense 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? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Confinement, Death, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Grief, and Abandonment

Moderate: Child death, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Blood, and Pregnancy

Minor: Gore

arangele's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Confinement, Death, Gaslighting, and Abandonment

sirenricobooks's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, and Abandonment

Moderate: Death of parent and Pregnancy

Minor: Body horror, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, Sexual harassment, and Classism

torturedreadersdept's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Infidelity, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

biancafrancisco's review against another edition

reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

I'm a simple woman, I see feminist greek retelling and I read

Buuuuut this one disappointed a bit. I enjoyed reading it, the writing is as pointed out in my cover "lyrical".
However, it does not do what it sets out to do. 

Ariadne as a character lacks luster as she is very passive.

She has barely any role in defeating the Minotaur (Dedalous gives her the thread and Phaedra steals the weapon), with this characterization one wonders how she even had the conviction to betray her father (I guess the explanation is her falling in love immediately by looking at Theseus....istg). 
While she lives in Naxos with Dionysus she also shows no interest in the sister she left behind or on what her husband does on their island.

She is lulled by her comfortable beliefs and leaves everything at that. 

When the two sisters came to be reunited I thought the story's purpose might be revealed, that it would be about these two woman and their bond (once again pointing to the supposed feminist undercurrent of the book), but the only reason Phaedra went to Naxos was to further her plot and they seemed to add nothing to each other. 

Through the book there is an emphasis on the gods being careless and cruel and innocent humans, particularly woman, suffering for it. This attempt at criticizing the treatment of woman in classical myth falls short as the plot of the book goes by. You would think Ariadne would go against this and, even if the ending had to be as in the myth, she would be shown fighting her fate.

Yet, she merely goes where she is pushed most of the time and both Phaedra's and her death feel pointless and void of meaning.

Phaedra's struggle with motherhood seems to also be looking to shed some feminist light, but the message gets lost along the way. 

At the beggining of the book Ariadne
speaks of seizing her destiny for herself, but we see her do nothing of the sort throughout the book. In her own words, after a decade of marriage, she says "I had been trusting and obedient. I had thought that was the right way to be". She ends up being disappointed by Dionysus also and it seems the only lesson to be learned is a weird dichotomy of men are bad and woman good mixed with a Madonna-whore complex where woman who reclaimed and used their power were seen as evil (Medea and Hera, for example) while passive woman like Ariadne were good. 

I realize this is to be a tragedy, but why retell a story if not to shine a new light on it? The women end the story the way they began, Ariadne without purpose and Phaedra miserable and heavy with humiliation. 

It is not a terrible book, it was enjoyable to read - it just didn't convey its own message. If you have started it searching for something akin to Madeleine Miller's Circe, you will not be totally satisfied.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Suicide

Moderate: Mental illness, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Murder

Minor: Child death, Confinement, Death, Incest, Infidelity, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Murder, and Pregnancy