Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

89 reviews

sandy_21's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective sad medium-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore, Alcohol, and Confinement

Minor: War and Adult/minor relationship

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: Gaslighting and Blood

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

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

franticfreya's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Suicide, Abandonment, Animal cruelty, and Blood

Moderate: Pregnancy, Body horror, Alcohol, and Death

Minor: Child death, Grief, and Rape

soarintotaylor's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective fast-paced

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

4.0

The DRAMA, the AUDACITY of these characters sometimes

Overall it was a beautiful, emotional story that accurately portrays the struggles women face throughout their lives

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Alcohol, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, and Pregnancy

maanbloem's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

A commom criticism of this book relates to the story the main female characters, that those are feminist which is an unfair criticism to the author's writing. The mythological stories were never feminist in the first place and the author, Jennifer Saint, could not make the storyline more feminist while still staying true to the original. I think the feminist perspective of how women are punished for the wrongdoings of men was done very well, especially considering characters like Pasiphae, of course Ariadne but also the ending and the destructiveness of unhappy powerful men.

The only reason this isn't a complete 5 out of 5 stars is that the middle part, about her time on Naxos, reminds me so much of Circe (which is my absolutely favourite book in the world) and felt too similar, but of course not the fault of the author, because that is the nature of the story. The writing style was wonderful and also the POV of Phaedra was unteresting, since I didn't know her story

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Child death, and War

Moderate: Alcohol

emilywemily6's review against another edition

adventurous dark lighthearted 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? It's complicated

4.5

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Suicide, Alcohol, Violence, Animal cruelty, Death, Child death, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Infidelity, Toxic relationship, and Mental illness

Minor: Cursing and Miscarriage

camiclarkbooks's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Suicide, Violence, Animal death, Blood, Death, Abandonment, Grief, Infidelity, Sexual assault, Vomit, War, and Animal cruelty

lermaline's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

If you want a beautifully written tragedy go for it, you’ll find what you need in this book. I think my mistake was reading Elektra before Ariadne. 

They were very similar topic in both of those books which makes sense because it’s based of off Greek mythology so they’re a thread of story that needs to be respected. However this book is a bit more colorful then Elektra. Why I’m disappointed is that it made me mad ! They women suffer, suffer, and then they die. Okay 👍🏻

 
Could’ve lived without reading this book however beautifully it described sibling relationships and betrayal 🙃

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Suicide, Alcohol, and Animal death

Moderate: Grief, Rape, Cannibalism, Child death, and Death

kkalicky94's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, Child death, Grief, Animal death, Misogyny, Murder, Pregnancy, Rape, Abandonment, Suicide, Death, and Violence

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