Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

It was a miracle- only miracles, surely, should not be so terrifying?

Hello friends, welcome to my blog! Today’s review is another myth re-telling. Ariadne by Jennifer Saint and oh my god where do I start with this book? Do you ever feel like you like something so much that whatever you read about it will only make you love it even more? I often have this feeling when I read about Greek re-tellings. I have a personal interest in them, not only the re-tellings but also the originals as well. I don’t even know how many times I’ve read what was written back then, and I don’t know how many times I read the words of ancient. When I first started reading myth re-tellings (all my Percy Jackson era fellas here!) everything I read made so much sense and I fell in love deeper and deeper with the stories. I’ve met with Madeline Miller, one of the best writers out there in my opinion and her writing changed me even more. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been reading Greek re-tellings, especially those. And damn didn’t I have high hopes for this. Ariadne’s story is so good, I thought she would be making her story even better with a modern woman’s mind and prove what Margaret Atwood did in The Penelopiad, prove that women in ancient Greece could be more and more they were written by women. But what did Jennifer Saint do? She kept silent. She had all the power to change the view on Ariadne but she chose to remain silent and let the men destroy her.

I do not like when women in re-tellings are shown as a cause, and I understand that they were hurt, I understand that they were betrayed and I understand that they suffer for the f*ck’s sake, but the fact that Ariadne had accepted her faith in the first half of the book made me so mad. If it wasn’t for Dionysus, she had accepted her fate. This book was advertised as yet another feminist view on the myths, and again, I thought that it would be somehow strong for Ariadne, but nope. None of the sorts happened. She just went from Theseus to Dionysus, letting them control her, letting herself be at the mercy of a “man”, a man she is so mad at. And I need to be honest; Dionysus is one of my favourite Greek gods, I even wrote my thesis revolving around his religious chaos against the order of Apollo, and his figure has the darkness within. He might look like the sweet golden boy outside but what he stands for is chaos itself. Frenzy. Madness. Laughter and wine. I hated reading him portrayed as this wanderer of gods and a divine being understanding humanity. My DEAR LORD HE IS THE GOD OF FREAKING frenzy PARTIES OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY- LIKE- WhAt? Though I did like the parts where he opened himself up and talked about his adventures and mother, it made him a solid character in my eyes but I didn’t like the general portrayal of the characters since the author chose to be this close to the myths and still made those changes.

Their story varies from piece to piece in mythology, and the fact that Jennifer Saint chose to unleash nothing but pain upon Ariadne irritates me. I am incredibly upset that this is how her story ended, and I will not tell you how but you can guess that she decided to make a wrong right and it went terribly wrong. I also realized after reading a Goodreads review that the timeline of the heroes is truly off? Like Perseus and Theseus and Hercules for an instant. Their timelines differ from each other quite a lot in Homer, so I do not understand a single thing about the last chapter of the book since the author either wasn’t sure about the timelines or decided to change them while being almost stuck with the original story and offering nothing different. Who knows?

Overall, I will say that this book was a disappointment to me. It made no sense to even think of considering this book as a feminist replenishment and a powerful figure for women in ancient Greece. This book was sadly written to just show us how much they suffered whilst SAINT could ACTUALLY CHANGE SOMETHING. Something I had already mentioned I do not know how many times in the review. Do I recommend it? Not really. The cover is great and seeing Ariadne was cool but other than that? I didn’t like it even a bit. I am so sorry. I will keep reading these books no matter what but I have genuinely lost my hope with all that feminism, and empowered women thing in the mythology retellings era. I don’t think that anything will come differently to us anymore.

I will see you in my next review friends! See ya. ✨