I had to mull this one over for a bit. There was some stuff that I really liked in here, but I tuned out often and I think it was the changing perspectives. Specifically - I wasn't crazy about Elektra's and that's who the book is named after. In all honesty, it probably should have been banned Klytemnestra because it felt like it was more her story and her perspective was the most interesting to read from.

This book is well written and I think if it was a full book from Klytemnestra's point of view, I'd be all about it. I think Elektra was kind of a boring character in herself so I'm not sure why she needed such focus.

Regardless, I will definitely be picking up more Jennifer Saint books. The Klytemnestra parts in this one and her debut Ariadne have me sold.

Thank you to @NetGalley and @flatironbooks for gifting me a copy of Elektra in exchange for an honest review.

🏛 Mini Review🏺
Ariadne had been on my TBR forever. I got it last year from BOTM but just never put it as priority to read. When I got approved for Elektra it was my motivation to read Ariadne. I absolutely loved Ariadne. It had me captivated from the first page. I was very familiar with the Minotaur stories so that was super helpful.

I was not super familiar with the stories in Elektra, so it was really hard for me to focus. I found my self getting a tad lost and that could have been because of the Audiobook. I really enjoyed all the stories but some of the characters really bothered me. Especially Elektra. I couldn’t find it in myself to like her even a little bit. I understand that she was the product of her upbringing and she was okay with a lot of the things that happened in her family because she believed in the system so fully. That annoyed me. Towards the end I think I started to like her and understand her more, but she mostly just annoyed me.

Clytemnestra’s story was interesting but she also annoyed me at times because she just didn’t think and I didn’t like how she played favorites.

My favorite out of the three was probably Cassandra, mostly because she didn’t annoy me 🤷🏻‍♀️

If you like mythology retellings and are familiar with a lot of the stories I recommend Elektra to you. I gave this book ⭐️ ⭐️ 💫.

A Greek queen, her daughter, and a princess of Troy are thrown into each other’s lives thanks to the Trojan War. In her new novel, Elektra, Jennifer Saint paints a complex portrait of these women as they shift between being pawns in a patriarchal game of domination and agents of their own lives determined to exact some measure of control over their fates. Deliciously satisfying reading.

As Agamemnon’s queen in Mycenae Clytemnestra’s life is good one. Her sister Helen is married to her husband’s brother, and despite marrying into the Atreus family, well-known as cursed for their bloody familial feuds, things are quiet. Clytemnestra has had a calming effect on her husband so when he agrees to go to Troy to get his brother’s wife back she has no real fears. Not even when he sends for her and their eldest daughter, Iphigenia, to marry the greatest Greek warrior, Achilles. Little does she know it will change her and the lives of everyone around her. When she returns home, she is a woman possessed by wrath, no longer the kind and loving mother her daughter Elektra has known.

For Elektra, as her mother changes and withdraws, her father stays imprinted in her mind for the next decade as a king favored by the gods, whose actions are never to be doubted. She knows of the family curse, but believes she can close the circle and end the tragedy when her father returns. When her mother takes their uncle as her lover, the chasm between the two widens to the point that Elektra flouts all the rules of society and leaves the castle for a life unheard of by royal mortals.

Far away, the young Cassandra, a Trojan princess, longs to be favored by the gods. Her mother was given ‘the sight’ by Apollo, but chose to ignore it regarding her youngest son Paris. Cassandra vows to do a better job and dedicates herself to honoring Apollo as one of his priestesses. But when the day comes and Apollo appears in his temple Cassandra makes an egregious mistake. The furious Apollo gifts her with prophecy, but curses her with never being believed. This leaves her in a place of near madness as she witnesses the future in her mind, but is derided as insane and a monster. Of the three, she is the most pitiable; her inability to control her fate predetermined by a god’s rage. She watches from the sidelines as all she knows to come unfolds in front of her. The reader is her only audience as she chronicles a decade of war and its aftermath. Only her death is her own.

Didn’t I just love this novel of vengeance, fury, plotting, and subterfuge? Yes. My rage may be overly stoked by the impending hit American women are about to take over control of their own bodies so I was all in to sit back and read about arrogant men turning on each other, committing infanticide and cannibalism to gain power and mock the gods, always paying the price in blood. Theirs and everyone around them. That Elektra, Clytemnestra, and Cassandra found their own ways to exact vengeance only made it better. Petty reading on my part? You betcha.

This is a subjective 5 stars on my part because in the pantheon of books on Greek mythology Elektra is a standout. Is it for everyone? Not if you detest mythology. But if you like dramatic, well-written fiction then reading Elektra is like being in the front row to one of the greatest Greek tragedies of all time. Spellbinding.

I really wanted to love this book, after absolutely loving Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. However, I struggled to get into the rhythm of the story. Told from the third person point of view following several women, Saint gives us their thoughts and opinions in a way that breaks up the cadence of the story as the rest of the book is very much a third person view of the political happenings. I made it more than 50% of the way through before finally accepting that this book was not for me. The pacing was too slow, the storyline not as interesting as I'd hoped.

Jennifer does it again! This book was a wonderful, powerful, and passionate retelling of Elektra. Ever since reading the Orestes & the Iliad, I have always been on Clytemnestra's side, and seeing her side of the story so vividly made me cry more than once. I love when we get to see the other side of the war, and thought the pacing and POV switches were great the whole time. Overall I hope that Saint keeps writing about Greek tales, because she has truly revitalized the genre.

This is only the second Greek mythology based fiction book ove read after reading Circe and I really enjoyed it! The writing was beautiful the characters and their motivations we're well fleshed out and I just was happy to be along for the ride. The timeline is long, but I feel that was fitting for the mood of the story and have no real complaints. A good book through and through. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This book just wasn't for me. While I appreciate when authors give voice to women of the past, this book seemed more like women just complaining about their lot in life. The title is deceiving as Elektra doesn't have a large role in the plot until very deep in the book. It gets 3 stars because I do always find it fascinating to read reinterpretations of classical myths.

I think if you know a decent amount about the Trojan War, there's a good chance you won't get anything *new* out of this story. I very much enjoyed this still because the writing, first and foremost, is beautiful, and the characters are deeply realized and were enjoyable to experience. I wish I'd known less about the women in this story and didn't know much of what was going on as I think that lessened my enjoyment just a smidge, but Jennifer Saint's writing and the way she tells these stories are a great way to introduce yourself to Greek mythology if you don't already have any background knowledge on them.

What I love most about Jennifer Saint is she takes a Greek myth that most people are already familiar with and gives a voice to the women involved in the myth that we might not have ever heard of. Electra is told in three point of views-Cassandra, Clytemnestra and finally Elektra. We get to hear their point of view with the events of the Trojan War and the events that happened before and after. This book was so good and I highly recommend it!

thanks to netgalley and Flatiron Books for proving me an ARC of this book.

I am torn on this book. While I enjoyed Jennifers writing, the organization and pace of the book was not my favorite. Calling the book "Elektra" is fairly misleading as the vast amount of this book is about her mother, Clytemnestra, and how she plots revenge on her husband, Agamemnon, after murdering their other daughter, Iphigenia. This story also features Cassandra, and of course Elektra herself. While eventually all POV's came together, it felt very disjointed for the first half of the book and the majority of the time that we actually did read from Elektra POV, it was about how she hated her mother and was awaiting the return of her father.

I don't know that I'd read it twice.

Was this good? Yes. Did I also only give it three stars? Yes. I genuinely enjoyed seeing Greece and Troy through Cassandra and Clytemnestra's POV - the women of the Iliad were tough with a capital T. But I REALLY disliked Elektra and found it very hard to sympathize and read her storyline. As a general rule it's not good to be a woman named in Greek mythology, and you definitely see why in this retelling - bad things happen when you have no power. I'll choose "Ariadne" over "Elektra" any day, at least she got some high points.

A beautifully written and female-focused retelling of the events of the Trojan war by the women who were left behind or who could only watch from the walls while under siege. Clytemnestra, Elektra and Cassandra give perspective from both the Greeks and from within the city of Troy. Helen and Clytemnestra are twin sisters, and we see their bond of sisterhood and how it gets stretched and tested when Helen provides the incitement for war. The thing that they could control was to wait and then to act on their determination for revenge. Poisonous family dynamics, grief, curses, prophecy all lead to classic Greek tragedy. Jennifer Saint explores the high cost of revenge and what those fires of hate and anger consume in a person. Things must be sacrificed to feed those hungry flames over so many years. We see the exhaustion and repetativeness of cycles of violence. The gods require much from humans but care nothing because they do not pay any of the cost.

I'm going to say the story was just okay. It's not that it was bad, but I didn't think it was great. I was mostly annoyed because it really didn't have a lot to do with Elektra herself..more those people who were associated with her (mainly her mother).

Despite the name of the book, this book was not solely told from Elektra’s point of view. Though hers was an interesting POV for a retelling of the Iliad. However, I personally found Cassandra’s POV in this retelling far more interesting.
I think there have been a lot of retellings of the Iliad lately, specifically from the POV of the women and while I love it, I may be a little burnt out on it.
That being said, Jennifer Saint is a great writer, and gave a depth to the characters that are lacking in so many other retellings.

This book was amazing. I coudn't put it down. It was magical. Higly recommended! The characters, the plots, the writting: wonderful and perfect.

I loved this retelling of the Trojan War that is told from the perspectives of different women involved. Jennifer has become an auto-buy author for me. I love her fresh takes on classical stories.

absolutely fantastic book - Saint's writing and grasp over the original myths is masterful, and somehow she manages to convey both her deep love for greek myths and her deep appreciation for the lacks in them. I loved the character worth, although one of the three perspectives was not my favorite, it was truly fascinating to read from and super well balanced. Bravo!!

I really wanted to like this book because it was about Elektra. However, Elektra barely gets any time on the page. It mostly focuses on Clytemnestra and Cassandra. While they are interesting, I think they should not be the main focus of the book. Since it is about Elektra. It should be her story and the sole focus. Other than that, the story feels very rushed and the other characters were bland. Still, I recommend this for fans of Pat Barker, Penelope Haines, and Natalie Haynes!

The lyrical prose in this book is beautiful. Jennifer Saint creates a beautiful world that sings to my heart with three POVs. So, I’m upset with myself that I was never able to get into this book. I think it’s wonderful for anyone interested in Greek mythology.

Elektra is perfect for readers of Ariadne. Jennifer Saint's follow-up is a reimagining of one of Greek mythology's most infamous heroines, Elektra. The story is told from the perspectives of Clytemnestra, Cassandra and Elektra. Three women are bound to a curse during the time period of the Trojan War. The character building is outstanding exploring the story of Helen of Troy through the eyes of her sister Clytemnestra. The book is beautifully written. Highly recommended!