Welcome

"History remembers some women as monsters and traitors."

Well some women can be terrible people

"Divine Feminine Outcasts: Reclaimed Stories, Volume I reimagines eight women drawn from mythology, folklore, religion, and history: La Llorona, Lilith, La Malinche, Mary Magdalene, Medusa, Sarah, La Virgen de Guadalupe, and Persephone."

This will be a disaster

"They do not make every woman flawless or erase the darkness within her story. Instead, they restore the complexity that traditional narratives often denied them by."

I don't believe you

"Looking at the Sumerian Inanna, ancient Greek Aphrodite, and Egyptian Hathor, amongst others, Hutton compares the characters of these female deities and examines how and why such a figure reoccurred so often."

Sounds interesting

"Every monster in Greek mythology was once just a woman who reacted. Medusa didn't choose to become dangerous. Something happened to her first, and the story blamed her for what came after."

Echidna, the Sphinx, Scylla, Stheno, Euryale, Medusa were monsters since birth in greek mythology

The sample only goes up to the Medusa chapter

She will find a way to ruin Hestia, Demeter, Psyche, Penelope, Baucis, Ariadne and Antigone

"Every myth has two versions. The one you were taught, and the one that was true before someone with more power than the woman in it decided to rewrite the ending."

This will be shit, just as anyone who actually read the myths expected

"She was born a woman, and by most tellings a strikingly beautiful one, who served as a priestess in the temple of Athena. Priestesses in that temple took a vow of chastity, and Medusa kept hers,"

I love the total lack of cited sources

"Here is the part that should stop you cold. Athena's anger, when it finally arrived, was not aimed at Poseidon. It could not be. So Athena aimed her fury at the only person available to recieve it: the woman it had happened to."

I'm sorry (not really), where's the part that I stop cold?

"Here is what almost nobody mentions about the myth: Medusa's gaze was not cruelty. It was consequence. It did not seek anyone out. It did not chase men down the beach."

Diodorus Siculus said that the gorgons got into war against the Amazons

Aeschylus in his work Prometheus Bound said that the gorgons were loathed of mankind

The ancient writer Lucan in his work Pharsalia said that Medusa petrified entire villages

This will be publised in August 2027

"Princess & the Peen The courtship was all propriety: chaperones, ceremonies, a prince who never once overstepped. She should have known restraint only makes hunger worse."

So the prince not being forceful in his approach towards this princess was bad?

"Cinderella Every gift was another chain. Every kindness another cage. She escaped barefoot, leaving nothing behind but a glass slipper. Now the prince isn’t searching the kingdom for a bride—he’s hunting for the one pair of feet he can’t stop thinking about."

Retellings hate happy stories

"Hades The underworld runs on reputation, and his brother just gambled his away. Its king doesn’t want the debt paid in blood—he wants the daughter his brother adopted."

That's atrocious

"Medusa She built her refuge for women the world stopped protecting. Falling for a blind man should be safe—until he starts asking questions only sight should answer."

2 tropes in 1: women's shelter and blind love interest

"Psycho & Eros Aphrodite cursed her to destroy Eros's heart from the inside. She didn't warn him Psycho was already a monster long before the gods got involved."

I will hate this

I don't know enough about Celtic and African folklore to comment on these short stories

Just by reading the title we know this will be really obnoxious

"You may have heard of my character, from one or more of the tales I inhabt; my figure is constantly inscribed in someone else's story – be it within the pages of Homer's Iliad or the ancient Greek plays of Euripides and Aeschylus."

Social media really made some people believe they have to be the main character in everything

"To say I disliked the allfather would be a definite understatement."

Clytemnestra, you basically had no interaction with him

"Even with my limited knowledge of mathematical theory, I know that an equation which positions Zeus on one side of the equals sign and protector of the wronged on the other side, is NOT a balanced equation."

Psyche, Marpessa, the Danaids and Alcmene(weirdly enough) received help from Zeus

Themis, Metis, Hera, Mnemosyne, Demeter, Dione, Leto, Maia, Himalaia, Selene, Semele, Lamia, Laodameia, the Pandora princess of Thessalia, Thyia, Protogeneia weren't abused by him

It's insane that more than once I had to defend Zeus against sa accusations, because these retellings just refuse to criticise him for the bad things he actually did

"With this graphic novel, Noémie Fachan stirs things up, offering a feminist reinterpretation of 22 myths, rehabilitating 22 wronged, rebellious, and angry figures."

I don't think Psyche fits such category

"To be labeled a monster is often to have refused to obey."

Minotaur, Lamia, Charybdis, Echidna, Cerberus, Sphinx, Ladon, Chimera, Geryon, Cetus, Python, Typhon

This was written with ai. I refuse to believe this thing somehow reached 1035 pages in a organic way. And of course the ai generated image on the cover doesn't help

Hades will be part of it. For some reason

"When forgotten witnesses begin to wake, Medusa discovers her gaze was never meant to be punishment. Her serpents, her stone, and the memories buried beneath the island are pieces of an ancient archive the gods have spent centuries trying to control."

Oh, so now the petrifying gaze is supposed to be about protection 🤦‍♂️

"But when an unexpected favor takes her to Ordinary, Oregon—the quirky little beach town with vacationing gods, a bossy Valkyrie, and a book club run by Death—she quickly discovers the town might have a slight murder problem."

So Medusa is alive in modern day United States, the state of Oregon to be more precise

Thanatos appeared, and he's on vacation?

Honestly, if you wanted a picture book for kids, maybe don't use the myth of Perseus against Medusa

So she was a princess here

"leaving an innocent girl to be sacrificied into servitude in Goddess Athena's temple."

"Fifteen years after being turned into gorgons by Athena, Medusa and her sisters’ relationship has gone from inseparable to impossible. Euryale is annoyingly perfect, and Stheno has disappeared."

Generic

"The journey quickly brings fresh horrors: screeching, topless harpies hound their every move, a hot demigod keeps trying to kill her (or worse, date her), and Medusa’s newfound crew actually wants to get to know her."

I don't like this

There's a considerable lack of fan content about this horse, which surprises me since:

He's part of the Gold Clan

He defeat Almond Eye at the Yasuda Kinen

Such victory was achieved in a record time that has yet to be beaten

Also not conected but:

The Wikipedia for the Yasuda Kinen reconizes the record

Which female character this meme is talking about? Yes

@sarafangirlart @starweaverblog

@when-the-pawnn @polypharmakoss

"Hades doesn’t want a consort, but Zeus is determined to bend Hades to his will. To keep the peace, Hades agrees to Zeus’s demands. Telling the King of the Gods that Hades will allow the farce if Zeus allows Hades to give up after a year."

Hades was never against having a consort

"Demeter hates her only child and is content to keep Kore hidden in the shadows of society while heaping praises upon her perfect daughter, the Goddess of Spring."

How it is possible that Demeter is more hated in these type of books than Zeus?

"The decree from Zeus, posted in the courtyard of the university, gives Kore the perfect opportunity to leave the suffocating world of Olympus."

What?...

『At the ball, no one dares step forward as consort for the Ruler of the Dead. Only Kore. Kneeling before Hades, Kore says, “I will be your consort…”』

Are you even trying to make it look like ancient Greece?

No, I'm not reading the sample

Wow...

"Medusa was a beauty who could rival Aphrodite..."

Literally NO one said that about Medusa

These two videos were posted this year.

The slightly longer one is from July 2026 and the other is from January 2026

"Through Hyacinthus, Phaethon, and Asclepius, he learns that even the brightest god cannot protect everyone he loves."

Got back from the dead

Not his son

Got back from the dead

This will be annoying as that Artemis book also from Michael James

And of course there's ai generated image on the cover

The summary

"They remember the sunlight because it is easier to worship warmth than admit light can also expose rot. They carve me young, clean, beautiful, untouched by grief, as if marble can erase the blood beneath a god's beginning.

Do not mistake me for the soft light that falls over fields at morning. Do not imagine I came into the world smiling, already singing, already loved by gods and mortals alike."

I wasn't thinking that 😑

This book will be 260 pages of Apollo inventing a problem so he can be angry about it

"Mortals love simple gods because simple gods are easier to pray to.

They want the sea to be only water, not hunger. They want war to be only courage, not butchery. They want love to be only sweetness, not possession, jealousy, humiliation, and grief. And they want me to be only sunlight. They want Apollo the beautiful, Apollo the singer, Apollo the healer, Apollo the laurel and the lyre."

...

The first few chapters of the Iliad show Apollo dropping a plague on the greek soldiers

"It was not some priest or nymph or throne-bound god eager to welcome the golden son."

Again the book is ignoring the goddesses who worked together to help Leto

"Apollo the sun(it was Helios). Artemis the moon(it was Selene). Apollo the city. Artemis the wild(she had cities)."

The books from this writer are a insult to anyone who cares about greco-romans myths

This is boring

"Across twenty chapters, this novel rebuilds the myth of Apollo from scattered, lesser-known threads of Greek tradition"

With all due respect, to use Daphne and Hyacinthus in a book that's supposed to be about lesser-known greek traditions is absurd

The sample goes up until Chapter 2

So instead of just cursing firm land, here Hera was cursing specifically the places into rejecting Leto. And then she forgot to curse Delos

And again we have a book ignoring the goddesses who worked together to help Leto

"He spent hours trying to reproduce those sounds until his sister, out of patience with what she called musical babbling, dragged him off by the arm to some other occupation."

But in mythology Artemis likes music too...

"He paid attention to mortals. This, more than anything else, bothered the rest of Olympus. Where the others saw playthings, worshippers, and instruments, Apollo saw people."

Oh, so you turned him into a "not like the other gods" trope 😑

"Cassandra dismisses him as a charismatic eccentric—until a single touch reveals memories that cannot belong to her and truths no historian could know.

Drawn into a hidden world where the Olympian gods have survived in the shadows of the modern age, Cassandra discovers that myths were never stories. They were memories."

I'm worried this is supposed to be Cassandra of Troy

"this Kindle edition invites you to witness a love that defies the boundary between god and man—and the price it demands."

Not sure if their relationship was defying any boundary

Don't know what to say about this one

"Everyone knows the face that turned men to stone. No one heard the girl condemned to bear it.

Before the snakes, Medusa was a daughter, a sister, and a novice of Athena. She believed a goddess's temple would protect her. She was wrong.

Narrated by Medusa, this novel reveals the part of the myth buried beneath the glory of gods and heroes."

Ai generated image on the cover + generic synopsis

Ps: volume II is 552 pages of a Hades glazing book 😑

The sample goes up until Chapter 4

I'm glad to see that she dies

She doesn't have the best relationship with her sisters. Phorcys isn't even mentioned and Ceto:

"Ceto was the mother who bore me, but not the woman I learned to call Mother. She left me on the coast when I was still too young to remember her face. A mortal woman found me there, her hands cracked from washing other people's clothes."

Ceto abandoned her as a baby. Medusa was raised by a random mortal woman who matters so little she doesn't get a name

"I hate how it shines when the sun strikes it head-on. I hate that whenever I go down to the city agora to buy bread or figs, the men stop talking to stare at my hair, following me in silence with their eyes until I turn the corner."

...

If the biggest problem in your life is having a hair so pretty that people look at(mind you they're not actually stalking her or making gross comments), then you have a very good life

"I imagine spending the next ten, twenty, or thirty years within those austere walls. I see myself growing old in the priestesses quarters, my hands rough from scouring the bronze censers and folding white linen tunics."

Seriously, it's the same repetitive bullshit of turning the priestesses into catholic nuns, but even more controling

"In Athena's house, there are no men who stop on the steps to watch the sea wind press my tunic against my body. Inside, there is only silence, work, and austere women who live by clear rules."

There's literally zero chance that Gretel Guerra knows about Triteia, Praxithea or the Pseudo-Hyginus myth about how Aethra met Aegeus and Neptune

"The fabric is coarse and heavy, neither bleached nor softened with oils; it iches at the neck and weighs upon the shoulders, but the matron says the discomfort of the wool teaches us to hold ourselves steady during processions.

I look smaller than I am. The temple tunic erases my waist, my shoulders, the shape of my legs. And that is good. It is exactly what I wanted when I climbed the hill from the beach: to become one more shadow among the columns, someone no one would have reason to look at twice."

You can tell this writer was raised either catholic or christian.

Also Medusa is insistent on walking on cold marble floors barefoot.

"Cover it properly. The laborers who carry the baskets of wheat have already wasted enough time staring at the temple attendants in the outer court. We come here to work, Medusa. Tighten the knot at the nape so you do not have to keep touching your veil."

Oh so you're going with the idea that they have to cover themselves so men won't be tempted

And before anyone says this is here as part of the criticism, no. The main problem is never how this cult of purity culture sets up women to fail, the problem is that Medusa is no longer at the top of such pathetic structure

"At the temple, we are given only unsalted bread and lentils boiled in rainwater because they say sweet food softens the will."

Well, I won't deny it's easier to control people when they're starving 😒

The "important" event in chapter 3 is that a wind blow removed her veil and people at the market looked at her. That's it

What I could read of chapter 4 shows Medusa praying alone at the altar during the night, I guess to relax from the horrible experience of... people looked at her but were respectful to keep distance and not make inappropriate comments. 😑

The last 2 pages of the sample describe Poseidon entering the temple in a dramatic way that honestly you can find in many other retellings

It's pathetic.

"-a sworn priestess who has kept every vow-"

We're not breaking new ground with this one

"Surrounded by her sisters and chorus of women already cast out and renamed by men"

Yeah, yeah, yeah

4 pages? Are you even trying?...

"To save the woman he loves, Perseus must challenge kings, defy Olympus itself, and rewrite a legend that has endured for centuries. Because the greatest lie ever told…was that Medusa was the monster."

Fuck that 🖕

If you're going to be so arrogant to claim that Monster Medusa is a lie, you should have come up with a more compelling fanfic

What a sucess...

She has a blind former slave old man as assistant. A partially blind middle-aged woman former child sex slave as assistant too

Sexual exploitation of children is treated as background detail to make Medusa look better. The reality that this kids might simply die to elements, can't return home, might have diseases, will lose this ONE coin, isn't important.

It's getting dumber. We have another retelling where Hermes is constantly interacting with Medusa

Her sisters have yet to be mentioned

"Hermes lounged in the chair, his long, well-muscled legs stretched out, crossed at the ankles. His piercing gaze roved over her nude form from head to toe and back."

Wtf...

So Athena got Hermes drunk to convince him to lend the flying sandals to Perseus. Who ended up adrift, reached the island and now is recieving care at the house of the gorgon

"My countenance doesn't please you? Am I not hideous enough, monstrous enough for you?"

Look at the cover and tell me where's the "hideous" creature

"I kept my vow to you, to remain chaste and pure,"

Such vow never existed

The audacity to use the myth of Erichthonius

And no, Perseus couldn't defy Olympus, and wouldn't do that for Medusa, of all characters

Ps: this last book is also very misoginistic by claiming Athena isn't a woman in her heart

You wouldn't believe how many times someone tried to reveal to me a "fun fact" about greek myths without knowing/remembering where the information came from

"From the award-winning author of Herc, an enrapturing feminist tale that brilliantly reimagines the story of Aphrodite and how she transformed herself from a lowly outsider to the darling goddess of love, for readers of Madeline Miller and Jennifer Saint."

Judging by the 3.9 stars rating, these readers hated it

Seriously this book has such a very juvenile writing that it's not wonder this achieved the incredible mark of getting bellow 4 stars on GoodReads AND on Amazon, that tends to have more kind reviews

Why Chaos and Nyx talk like teenagers on Netflix?

We have a time skip of Aphrodite being trapped in a cave for maybe months, because for some reason the writer Phoenicia thinks we would want that for the second chapter 😐

This book about Titans and Olympians living in mythological ancient Greece has many characters using curse words like they're americans on Twitter

The Atlas chapter: Atlas walks around looking for Ouranos testicles, finds the cave of notAphrodite, she throws a rock at him, they have some argument about what she is and then Atlas get's angry and strangles her

Aphrodite's chapter: Prometheus heards about a mysterious figure living in a weird cave and decides to go there, notAphrodite makes him promise that Atlas won't appear anymore and for the next few weeks they talk? And sometimes flirt? The book tries to pretend there's a romantic mood between them, but it's hard to believe

We don't actually see the flirting, the narrator just says there was flirting at some point in a very bland conversation

There's a Metis chapter. Because no editor told/convinced the writer that it was a bad idea

Of course we have the male deities being all brutes with little intelligence

And they're sexist too to showcase how Metis is superior

And of course we have the dreadful nicknames

How tf you reached the conclusion that Eros needed a nickname? Woman, his name is only TWO syllables!!!

So in this story Zeus isn't being raised by Gaia?

Why there's a yatch in the background?

"For readers of Circe and The Song of Achilles, here is a Greek myth retelling that finally asks, 'What does the goddess of love have to learn about receiving it?' "

Wish these writers would understand that not everything needs to be made with Madeline Miller as reference

Ai generated image on the cover

Well that's quite a original premise

Well it's there

"A sex symbol of the most influential, fetish in the eyes of the mens and the gods.

The most beautiful of roses, but with the sharpest thorns.

But what if she was much more than that?"

She was always more than that, but retellings constantly ignore her other domains

Is easy to see that this was written by a 17 years old

That's not a compliment

Of course we have an overuse of curse words

"Ares is known for being violent. Of all the men who exist on this earth, I had to choose this one."

Why she's acting as if Ares is the worst choice of boyfriend?

Also this Hermes is worse than the myth Hermes at flirting with Aphrodite

"You could fuck all the mortals you wanted, but you knew that the gods were forbidden to you!"

What kind of dumb requirement for divorce is that?

"The Olympian's Gala is THE ceremony of the Greek Gods. This gala is a global event, so it couldn't be more publicised."

You couldn't come up with a different name for this event?

"I love my freedom, and I will only leave it for true love, not for a one-night stand. And I feel like she's slipping through my fingers. My freedom that I craved so much. I don't want my life to be in the hands of a man, and especially not a violent man."

Aphrodite absolutely adored Ares

She was more violent than him

That's as far as the sample went

So in this story Aphrodite had to wait hundreds of years until Zeus allowed her to divorce Hephaestus. One night, she get's very drunk in a club, Ares takes advantage of that to have sex with her. By the next day, Zeus discovers what happened due to a paparazzi and decided to basically force her to be Ares' company at a Gala party. Aphrodite then cries many times over the possibility of being forced to be with Ares who here is just "the violent" god

A "feminist" wrote this 😐

The writer is miss lucine

Being raised for the sole purpose of being a glorified maid is sad. Yes, the actual priestesses weren't like that, but almost no retelling bother to read how they actually worked

"Perfect for readers of Madeline Miller's Circe, Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne, and Natalie Haynes' Stone Blind."

Lazy references

The book probably was removed from Amazon but whatever

That's as far as the sample went

Ai generated image on the cover

"Medusa represented an unwelcome anomaly in Ceto's previously spotless record."

Stheno and Euryale are quickly removed from the narrative and of course Ceto and Phorcys don't like Medusa 😑

"The head Man himself, Zeus, who always liked to keep one immortal eye out for comely mortals, reminded himself to check back on Medusa in eighteen to twenty mortal years. His wife, Hera, likewise set a mental note to check in with her husband in eighteen to twenty mortal years."

...that's so gross. Zeus wasn't counting the days until he was legally allowed to sleep with Medusa. In fact the vast majority of Olympus didn't care about her

"Medusa was rarely graced by the direct attention of her family. Visits of unrelated sea immortals were mainly to confirm the anomaly of her mortality and beauty and to have a bit of a giggle at her expense."

Now she's being bullied by other sea deities for being a pretty mortal

She's being raised by a random mortal couple because at the time they were childless

I forgot their names because honestly they don't matter and have no clear personality trait beyond not liking Medusa due to her parents

"When Medusa reached age twelve, keeping young men otherwise occupied became an increasingly difficult endeavor. She tried to spend more time in the sea, but fish and sea gods were also lured to her, and she gained the attention of myriad uncanny creatures of all genders."

Are we supposed to ignore that young mortal men and very old deities are going after a 12 years old girl?

"Eventually, she decided to make her way to Athens to try her luck at becoming a priestess at the temple of wise Athena. It bothered Medusa that she couldn't come up with a better idea than serving in a temple; which was not really her idea at all, but she speculated she would think of something better on the way."

...

So the plan is to just go to the entrance of the temple and ask to join?

I think she's like 17-18 at this point

"Pretty little thing, aren't you? That must have been a disappointment to your mother, but not to me."

Do you see why these books aren't that innovative? Medusa is always a pretty girl harassed by men, ignored by her family and 99% of the time Poseidon is a antagonist from the first scene

"Athens? That is it's present name. I may choose to reclaim that territory one day."

You know that Poseidon got over the dispute for the city, right?

Quite rare to see Thoosa being mentioned

"In Athens, in the city's most sacred temple, a young priestess with wheat-colored hair has mastered a skill no one has taught her: to return every gaze with firmness, never lowering her gaze first. Athena herself notices her, and makes her a promise that seems like a gift: as long as you serve this temple, no one will be able to touch you."

This skill is pathetic

Medusa never lived in Athens

Athena would never make such promise

"She isn't alone forever. In the Sorority of the Discarded , a refuge for women transformed, betrayed, forgotten by the gods, Medusa finds what no temple had ever truly offered her: a place to be, without having to justify herself."

Oh, it's the women's shelter bs again 🙄

Perfect for those who loved Madeline Miller's Circe , Pat Barker's The Song of Achilles , and The Silence of the Girls : Greek mythology reinterpreted with an empathetic, feminist, and unforgettable voice.

I feel like there's something wrong with the references

Being fair, I could put some paragraphs on Google translation to understand a little of the story, but I don't want to

"Medusa once served Athena beneath a roof of cedar and gold, waking before dawn to light the sacred lamps, wash the altar, and sing hymns to the goddess she believed embodied wisdom and justice.

Now Medusa lives alone within the ruins of the sanctuary she once loved.

Told in haunting first person, it blends Greek mythology, psychological horror, body horror, divine cruelty, feminine rage, tragic fantasy, brutal combat, and the terrible loneliness of being transformed into the crime committed

For readers who enjoy feminist mythology retellings, Gothic Greek tragedy, morally complex heroines, monstrous women, dark fantasy horror, mythological horror, lyrical prose, grimdark tragedy, and stories that reclaim the silenced voices behind famous legends."

Trust me, it's not as engaging as the synopsis claim

"The poets carve me into their verses as a lurking horror, a jealous maw in the dark, a thing that delights in the stiffening of flesh and the closing of mortal eyes. [...] They say I was born monstrous, perhaps because in comforts them to believe monstrosity announces itself early.

Better that, surely, than admit a girl may enter a temple in white linen and leave it cursed for the crime another committed against her."

It's really annoying when retellings pretend as if it's morally wrong to treat Medusa as a monster since birth

"Brave, foolish, beloved Ione, who had shared figs with me in the dormitory and whispered jokes during prayer until both of us shook with forbidden laughter. She refused the story told by the priests. She refused to believe I had become what rumour required."

So we have random dead sapphic love interest whose entire character is to praise Medusa

It might be because I developed apathy for this character, but reading any Medusa retelling never made me cry of feel anything positive for her

"A modern retelling of the Medusa myth set in a snake-handling church in Tennessee in the summer of 1920 as they vote to ratify women's suffrage for the entire United States."

I have no idea of what's going on

"The last witness to a dynasty woven with the curse of the high gods...

A resolution taken for the sake of passion, the mortal stroke dealt unto a brother,"

"ulu master of wine", no wonder this book has a different synopsis now

She isn't a silent woman.

This book hates Pasiphae, for some reason

"My mother, Queen Pasiphae, was condemned to dwell in the most remote, sunless chambers of the palace, her reason utterly extinguished. When night draped the palace in stillness, there would arise from the depths of those dark corridors my mother's bestial whispers and delirious ravings, interwined with agony."

I don't think even the greco-roman writers made her like this

"I grew up, a solitary princess, starved of affection. I was a child forced to prefer the coldness of stone walls to the warmth of a mother's embrace."

So her sisters and brothers(bar Androgeus) are basically gone from the narrative?

If the bull is immortal, how can it be sacrificied?

"Whilst Asterion was yet a tender child, his honors not yet fully grown and his frame retaining the delicacy of youth, I had found occasion to behold him from afar."

Yeah sure whatever

"Beneath that massive, jet-black bull's head, there lay no monstrous hatred, but warm human eyes filled with tears of fright, seemingly imploring for mercy."

...🙄

Ps: what you're seeing is the old version. At some point the "writer" decided to change huge parts of the story

And by huge parts I mean the book now has 311 pages

"The underground prison is home to the minotaur, a bull-shifter so feral and violent, he has never been allowed to walk the streets of our city.

Or so the legend goes. Nobody who's seen him has ever lived to tell the tale."

Kinda of a modern world

"Zeruhn is a lab created shifter gone wrong."

I don't have words to explain how dumb this is

"And if that means bargaining away her hand in marriage, let it be done.

And Dionysus is no longer sure he wants his prize of trading away her hand of marriage.

Was it hate at first sight—Or a chance at eternal love?"

It's hilarious how the synopsis pretends there's a suspence just for the next paragraph to say this will be a happily ever after

Dionysus on the cover and Dionysus on the above image barely match

"When I bartered for a taste of mortality, I enjoyed a humble life as a farmer's son, but I still rank far higher than any of them in the created order."

What?...

"I must come when summoned by my true name and I have to enter bargains when one is offered— though we Primordials may negotiate extensively before agreeing, which is only fair since we must complete our end of the bargain or perish."

That's a stupid rule

Ariadne isn't a very intelligent protagonist. She summons Dionysus while semi-naked and get's annoyed that he can see her body. Woman, you could have called him after getting dressed

"I am a princess; not one of your priestesses. They may be free to entertain your frivolity and flattery, but I have the weight of a kingdom on my shoulders. I have summoned you because I require a hero worthy of legends."

But priestesses weren't expected to sleep with the god they served. That was actually really unlikely to happen

Look at this atrocity

Ariadne is such a imbecile that she believed calling a deity her prisoner would somehow turn him to her side

"『I wasn't talking about marrying you. Earth, seas, and firmament, no!』 Ariadne jams her finger against my chest again. 『I mean you could have the hand in marriage to bargain away as your kind likes to do.』"

So Ariadne wants to Dionysus to confront the Minotaur, who here is a god-killing creature for the "prize" of... setting her up with some random

Is she stupid? Seriously 😑

"But since I am his only daughter, the sole princess of Crete, Minos determined I was too precious of a commodity and demanded the price to be paid to him for the honor of my hand."

So I guess Phaedra, Akakalis and Xenodike ceased to exist

"She betrays the palace that shaped her, mourns the brother the world called monster, and flees across the sea believing love will carry her into a new life."

Ok then

The sample goes up until chapter 2

"he touched two fingers to her brow and named her Ariadne, uttering the syllables as if sealing them into stone."

It's quite crazy how rare it is to see a retelling where Pasiphae and Minos don't treat Ariadne like trash from the start

"Ariadne would lean into her mother's lap and ask whether gods could love without harming what they touched,"

Girl, you're not even 7 years old. Where this question came from?

"as she answered that the gods were vast and that mortals were small vessels beneath sudden rain."

That's a bad analogy

And Androgeus isn't her only full brother!!

Yes, the bar is set that low

"and in that single glance she felt not only terror but loneliness so deep it seemed older than the palace itself."

Sure girl 😒

"Instead she took her daughter's hand and held it between both of hers, saying that the gods could make a wound from a queen's body and a king's pride, and that children should not have to carry the sins of those who came before them."

Does that read like something Pasiphae would say?

You know, it's quite refreshing to see a book that doesn't beg me to cry over the Minotaur

"The world calls her the girl who saved Theseus and got left sleeping on a beach for it. The cautionary tale. The warning they tell girls so they stay small. She is here to put the ending right."

It's not a warning telling girls to stay small, it's a warning about misplaced trust

"For readers of Lore Olympus, A Touch of Darkness, and morally-grey, villain-era Greek retellings that leave the rage in."

Lore Olympus was trash, refuse to read A Touch of Darkness and there's nothing morally-grey about this book saga

Chapter 2 will be annoying

Why tf these people took a child to hear the Minotaur?

"I did it in the only place my father could not hear, the inside of my own head, which is the one country a girl in a house like mine ever fully owns."

Thea Marlowe, there's a limit in how many times you should repeat the "princess that had a easy life is actually opressed" plot, you know right?

"But I was the clever one, and in a house like ours clever is a more dangerous thing for a girl to be than beautiful, because beautiful get's you married off and clever get's you used."

I mean, if you want to be known for intelligence, you have to accept that people will be telling you to use that ability

"Jennifer Saint's Ariadne is a mesmerizing debut novel for fans of Madeline Miller's Circe."

Bad sign

Dramatic start 😑

"It shone proudly on my neck when we attended Daedalus' wedding, a mighty feast hosted by my father, who was delighted that Daedalus made his alliance with a daughter of Crete—another tie holding him here, allowing Minos to boast about his exalted inventor. Although his wife died giving birth to their son before they'd been married a year, Daedalus took comfort in the baby, Icarus,"

Mother characters are more likely to die in retellings than in the actual myths

"Gods might enjoy mortal skill in hunting or music or weaving, but they were always alert to hubris—and woe betide a human whose skills came close to those of the divine. Something that immortals could not tolerate was to be inferior to anyone in any respect."

They could tolerate mortals being very good at something, just don't brag too much

I'm starting to notice that a lot of Ariadne retellings pretend as if her mother was this kind peaceful woman stuck with Minos instead of the crazy witch goddess who once cursed her husband into ejaculating scorpions

Some time ago was listening to this song and the idea came

Aegisthus was raised as a upper class guy, in the house of a king

Electra was turned into a slave to her step-father

"The rise of a king, and the fall of a queen"

Could be when Agamemnon returned victorious from the war, meanwhile Clytemnestra was organizing the plan that would make her kids hate her

"Go get your upper class wife,

Oh, she's got all the personality,

Of a lemon that has been truly sucked dry"

That's not too far from how Clytemnestra ended up becoming