Elektra: No.1 Sunday Times Bestseller from the Author of ARIADNE

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Or perhaps it is more appropriate to say I never could figure out why she couldn’t provide a reasonable voice to what she was seeing. Finally, one day I will be tired of Trojan War's retellings but not today and definitely not with this book! She also doesn’t seem to care about others around her- especially how she treats her friend Georgios and has a weird Oedipus complex about Agamemnon. She dismisses the voices of other women, steadfastly refuses to take any action for herself beyond moping and grooming a man to commit murders for her, and has a blind devotion to her monstrous father that goes well beyond filial loyalty and dips dangerously close to incestuous/Oedipal obsession.

While I didn't know much of the stories of Elektra, Clytemnestra, and Cassandra before reading, I was able to catch on easily to their roles.Especially considering that this was a (feminist) retelling, it was aggravating to read that the girl first didn't acknowledge that her mother was using a man / boy to get revenge for Agamemnon's crime (as if only men could do that), while making excuses for her father despite him having killed her older sister, only to then turn on her mother for not seeing that everyone must be doing everything to please the gods (effectively not caring about her supposedly beloved sister) and plotting to murder Clytemnestra to avenge Agamemnon. Her drowning, never-ending grief was portrayed so well, her fierce love for her children felt so tangible that it felt like *I* lost people beloved to me as well. I’ve loved Greek mythology since I was a kid, I adore Percy Jackson and have since I was younger, and am amongst the many, many people who are obsessed with Madeline Miller’s retellings. This is without a doubt my favourite book that Saint has released, I never knew just how desperate I was for the voices of Elektra, Cassandra and Clytemnestra until I started to read this wonderful novel. The only issue I have is that there have been many of retellings featuring Troy and Clytemnestra/Helen recently and so nothing particularly new came to light of me.

She thinks the whole world revolves around her and HER pain and noooooooo one will ever relate to poor, poor, Elektra. Yes, she intersects them at the end, but it is so brief that it does feel like enough justification for her presence.

Each main character of this book is very well narrated by Beth Eyre, Jane Collingwood and Julie Teal. Despite these minor issues, being a lover of Greek mythology I truly enjoyed this novel and can confidently recommend it. My degree was in classical civilisations - so it meant this was a straight forward read, I knew who everyone was and what was going to happen.