“What I did not know was that I had hit upon a truth of womanhood; however blameless a life we led, the passion and the greed of men could bring us to ruin, and there was nothing we could do.”

Ariadne has grown up in a world where females are disposable or punished for the actions of their husbands. The Kingdom of Minos is stained by the yearly sacrifice of the Athenians to her brother, The Minotaur. When Theseus, the prince of Athens joins his people in this offering, Ariadne falls head over heels for this hero and decides to help him escape. But at what cost?

Ariadne is a retelling by Jennifer Saint from the Greek myth about Theseus and his quest to kill the Minotaur. But in this case we follow a female point of view. And I really enjoyed this book. I loved how Saint truly took this myth to the next level. In the myths Ariadne barely makes it to the footnotes and now we see the story from a whole new perspective from her and her sister. The book is written from two POV’s: Ariadne and her sister Phaedra. As I didn’t like Phaedra immediately it took some adjustment with these chapters. Only downside was the fluctuation of the pacing. At some points it slowed down to the somewhat extensive elaboration of the tales by the “heroic” men, which probably was intentional, while it picked up at such a fast rate in the end that it felt a bit rushed. But besides that I could really appreciate that Saint showed how the disposability of women can grow in strong, witty resilient and lovable characters.