Ariadne

December 1, 2020

Like Madeline Miller's Circe, Saint's debut novel offers a feminist retelling of a classic Greek myth, this one centering on the princess who helped Theseus slay the Minotaur. Here, Ariadne sees Theseus as a means of escaping her home, but she doesn't want to leave little sister Phaedra behind.

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2021
A debut novelist retells timeless tales from a feminine perspective. Classical mythology endures--at least in part--because of its malleability. Ancient Near Eastern cultures borrowed one another's deities and transformed them to meet their own needs. Poets, playwrights, and painters have been creating their own iterations of the Olympian gods for thousands of years. One of the difficulties of working with familiar figures and well-known tropes is making them fresh. Writers crafting long-form narratives face the additional challenge of putting flesh on archetypes. In choosing to give a voice to a woman plagued by awful men--her father, King Minos; her first love, the hero Theseus; Dionysus, the god of wine--Saint succeeds in presenting a distinctive version of Ariadne. The author doesn't quite deliver on making her protagonist--or anyone else in this novel--real. One issue is Saint's prose style. She uses formal, stilted language that is, perhaps, supposed to create a sense of antiquity but instead just feels unnatural. There is more telling than showing, and characters launch into soliloquies that might make sense in a Greek tragedy but are out of place here. On the whole, Saint is writing in a mode that is neither realist nor fantasy but an awkward place in between. For example, as she offers a detailed depiction of the infancy and development of the Minotaur--Ariadne's half brother--the monster ceases to be horrifying and instead becomes slightly ridiculous. The reader has leisure to ask such questions as why, since cows are herbivores, a creature with the head of a bull would enjoy a diet of human flesh. Worse, though, is that Saint manages to make Dionysus--a god who inspired bloodthirsty frenzies in his drunken followers--boring. Ariadne becomes his bride soon after she's dumped by Theseus. After a few years, Ariadne and Dionysus are staying together for the kids and hoping that a couples vacation to Athens will spice things up. Ambitious but uninspiring.

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April 15, 2021
Ariadne and Phaedra are the daughters of Minos, the ruthless King of Crete, where each year hostages from Athens are fed to a labyrinth that holds the hungry, monstrous Minotaur. But when Theseus, the Prince of Athens, enters the maze himself, Ariadne is determined to help him escape and put an end to her father's cruelty. It is what comes after the Minotaur's defeat that will be uncertain: Ariadne will come to realize that women have no true place of agency in the games played between gods and heroes. Saint can be heavy-handed with foreshadowing and narrative exposition, and the sisters' motivations could have been better fleshed-out in the first part of the novel. But as the story continues, the two women become more complex--and bold. They grow stubborn and dare to grasp at happiness and even independence in a patriarchal world where anything might draw the ire of the gods or goddesses above them. Fans of Madeline Miller's Circe (2018) will enjoy this faithful retelling that centers on the often-forgotten women of Greek myth.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 1, 2021

The most famous part of Ariadne's story, helping Theseus escape the labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur, is only the beginning of this sweeping mythological novel. Saint cleverly combines sources, many with conflicting events and time lines, into the compelling story of a young woman who falls in love, experiences betrayal, and carves a life for herself outside the traditional narratives of gods and heroes. In doing so, the author underscores the cost of these narratives, which relegate women's complex and valuable lives to background incidents in heroes' stories, including horrifying incidents of sexual violence. Saint's writing is slow, atmospheric, and character-driven, purposefully setting aside the action-packed male hero narratives of Greek mythology to work in an alternate mode. While some readers may be put off by the book's slower pace and Ariadne's fulfillment through motherhood and domesticity, others will revel in the complex psychology of the characters. Perhaps most telling is the focus on Ariadne's younger sister, Phaedra, who "wins" the perfect marriage to a hero, becomes queen of Athens, and still finds herself trapped in an endless cycle of pregnancy and depression despite her intelligence and talent for politics. VERDICT This will appeal to older teens interested retellings that give voice to women's stories; offer it alongside books by Madeline Miller, Ad�le Geras, Elana K. Arnold, and Jane Yolen.-Molly Saunders, Manatee County P.L., Bradenton, FL

Copyright 2021 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 7, 2021

DEBUT Saint retells stories of the ancient Greek gods from a human--particularly female--perspective. Ariadne is the granddaughter of the sun god and sister of the Minotaur, a monstrous bull with a taste for human blood. She longs to escape Crete and the unappealing marriage her father has planned for her; when Theseus arrives as part of the group to be sacrificed to the Minotaur, she sees her chance and helps him defeat the beast. But on their return to his homeland, Theseus abandons Ariadne on the island of Naxos, and she has lost all hope of rescue when Dionysus, the god of wine, appears. He seems unlike the other gods--considerate, caring, gentle--and they marry. As Dionysus begins to long for a worldwide cult of worshippers, he asks his younger brother Perseus to help him. But Perseus, slayer of the Medusa, refuses to be subjugated, and tragedy ensues. Saint skillfully weaves the Greek mythology of heroism and revenge into whole cloth, making the fabric of interactions among humans and gods compelling and entertaining as she shows us that women often get the blame for men's (and gods') actions. Sisterhood is required for survival. VERDICT Readers of mythology and human relations will enjoy this book. Highly recommended.--Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence

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