Thank you to #netgalley and Flatiron books for an early listen in exchange for a honest review.

For an audiobook to be good, it takes a great narrator. This audiobook has three good narrators. Without those three brilliantly cast, perfectly distinct voices, I would not have been able to finish this book, despite the good story telling.

As I listened, I couldn’t help but compare this novel to Saint’s debut, Ariadne. I loved that retelling—particularly the way in which Saint turned a tragedy into a coming-of-age story with a bittersweet, but hopeful ending.

Saint took on three myths for this daring retelling, and her writing style admittedly kept me listening. I honestly believe that she was the only author who could tell both Elekra and Clytemnestra‘s stories in a way that makes both characters relatable. I’ve always had a particularly seeing Electra as a hero, and this certainly helped.

The only issue I took with it was Cassandra. Her story, in my opinion, was a bit out of place here. Did we need to see the story of Troy? Probably. Could it have been told from the much more interesting perspective of Helen? I think so. That, however, is just my personal opinion.

If you’re a fan of Greek retellings, this is, hands-down, the best I’ve read.

Thanks to Netgalley for an advance copy.

It took a bit to get into this but mostly because my background is Mythology and it started slow and repetitive for my experience. But I'm glad I stayed with it. The characters bring a new perspective to the Trojan war and what it would have been like to be a woman so long ago.

I ended up enjoying this one!

I will start this by saying that I have always had a bit of an interest in Greek mythology. I enjoy the stories, even as dark as they can be. I have also listened to the audiobook of Ariadne, also by Jennifer Saint. I did enjoy Ariadne, but Elektra was definitely a better fit for me. I really enjoyed the multiple narrators and the switching perspectives. I was familiar with some of the mythology (Helen of Troy in particular), but was less familiar with the stories of Clytemnestra, Elektra, and Cassandra. I like that Jennifer Saint picks stories that don't feel overdone. I was familiar enough with the world without feeling like I knew everything that was coming. I love that she gives each main character such a strong presence and voice. They are engaging and interesting and feel fresh despite that fact that they are known characters. This story was definitely more of what I wanted out of a Greek myth retelling, and I will happily look forward to the next one.

“This is the story of three women, their fates inextricably tied to this curse, and the fickle nature of men and gods.”

“Elektra” is a stunning mythology retelling that changes your perspective of the Trojan War and the women affected by it. It is harsh and brutal with the fine details of Saint’s signature writing.
Weaving a tail of three fatally overlooked women in The Trojan War, “Elektra” captivates you the moment you begin and doesn’t let you go until the last page. Telling a familiar story through the eyes of Elektra, Clytemnestra, and Cassandra, “Elektra” gives us a unique look into the decade long war between Sparta and Troy speared by the infidelity of Helen of Troy.

I listened to this one as an audiobook and I wish I had physically read it. Although the audiobook was beautiful, it was confusing that the point of view would change but there would not be a good indicator of it changing. There were multiple narrators for each POV but I could not tell enough of a difference to realize that the POV changed, until a location or side character was named.
I loved Cassandra’s POV and reading about her pitfall as a priestess of Apollo and how her dignity led her to a life of being ignored, even after she was given the gift of sight. Clytemnestra was a character I never paid much attention too previously in mythology despite her role with Agamemnon. However, Jennifer Saint opens the readers eyes into a new perspective. Clytemnestra has always been depicted as cold but with a women’s retelling her true motives are divulged making you want to route for her. Oddly enough Elektra’s POV was my least favorite. I never realized we were in it while listening to the audio (the book has defined POV) and that took away from her character.
ANYBODY who enjoys Greek mythology, especially those interested in The Trojan War, would devore this book. The writing was beautiful and hand so much earnestly in it that truly anybody who has wanted to dip their toes into Greek mythology would enjoy this book.

Narrated by: Beth Eyre; Jane Collingwood; Julie Teal
Publication Date: May 3, 2022

My thoughts…
Captivating. I couldn’t stop listening! I loved Circe, and this one was just as good. It doesn’t matter if your well versed or a newbie in Greek mythology, you will still enjoy this book. Because Saint did a wonderful job with the three women’s POV, the timeline and the characters’ development. Grab it. You’ll get a devastatingly beautiful story of intergenerational sacrifice through three rebellious women. The narrators did a splendid job narrating about prophecies, revenge and royals in the world of Mycenaean Greece.

Fantastic narration and story. I love that we are getting more and more retellings of the women in Greek mythology.

Thank you NetGalley, Jennifer Saint, and Flatiron books for providing and e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to like this so bad, especially since I struck out with Ariadne, but I just couldn't get into it. Jennifer Saint's writing style, while very pretty, leaves me sort of bored. I think that's just the danger of writing a story in which the reader is already familiar. While this certainly expanded upon the legends of Clytemenstra, Cassandra, and Elektra, it does not add that emotional quality that made me actually care for any of them. My only emotions for these characters came from the feelings for them that I was carrying over from reading their stories and essays about them, which really bummed me out. Rather than fleshing these characters out, they continued to come off as one note like literary devices just used to move the plot along. They felt like 2D renderings - pretty from the front but waif thing if seen from the side. Very little depth.

Overall, the writing is fine, and I'm certain that there will be lots of people who love this. I think if you were a fan of Ariadne by Saint, this is also worth a read.

3/5 stars just because the writing style is very beautifully crafted, and it's clear that Saint puts a lot of effort and research into her books.

Now adding on to the review of the book, I just want to say that the audiobook narration was lovely. If you're going to read this and you enjoy audiobooks, wholeheartedly recommend going that route.

An advanced copy of this audiobook was provided with courtesy of NetGalley, Macmillan Audio and Jennifer Saint. Thank you!

This book sounded interesting to me because I am a fan of Greek mythologies, and have enjoyed reading contemporary retelling such as the Song of Achilles and a Thousand Ships. While I haven't read Ms. Saint's previous Book, Ariadne, it appears majority of reviewers enjoyed Elektra as much as or better than Ariadne. So I was hopeful that I would be a fan as well.

The book is essentially a retelling of Aeschylus's Oresteia. While it is titled Elektra, it centers three female characters as the book cover depicts - Elektra, her mother Clytemnestra, and Cassandra, a Trojan princess. In fact, the central character and the dot that connects all three characters (and events in this book) is Clytemnestra rather than Elektra. I suppose Elektra rolls off our tongues easier than Clytemnestra; however, I felt the title was misleading.

Clytemnestra is an interesting and complex character, and the book depicts her imagined emotions beautifully in explaining why she did what she did. I felt that her story alone was enough for the entire book, rather than having three different points of views. Of the three, ironically Elektra's view is the least complex and interesting to me.
There are three narrators reading this book, one for each main female character. Oddly enough, Elektra's voice was the softest of the three and didn't feel as though it fitted her character either. Overall the narration was skilled though.

I would recommend this book to people who are interested in Greek mythologies in general. It's interesting to have points of view from female characters, so that was a plus for me. The story felt somewhat over-melodramatic for my taste. Upside was that it made me want to read Oresteia, so I would suggest this book who are interested in reading Oresteia but intimidated by the book - this might be a good starting point.

Thank you again for providing me with a copy of audiobook for an honest review.

Thank you, NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the free ARC of this audiobook.
Overall, I liked the story. It was well developed and the 3 POVs chapters were amazing, they gave us a very good look into the characters' lives.
I was put off by Elektra and her obsession with her father, it made me cringe a lot, but I guess that's mythology peace of it.
I think I would have liked it better if I read it on paper, but the audio did not work for me. I liked the narrator, it was clear and emotional. However, I was so lost in chapters and could not follow whose POV am I listening to now.
Additional half star for the absolutely gorgeous cover!

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for the audio-galley in exchange for my honest review.

Jennifer Saint has not failed to enlighten me to another obscure feminist retelling of Greek mythology. I read Ariadne earlier this year, who I knew only by name. And now, Elektra. I have heard of Ephigenia, of course. Even of her vengeful mother. But I thought that was the end of the story.

Silly me, Greek tragedy is the gift that keeps giving, even when you wish it wouldn’t. Especially when you wish it wouldn’t. Like with House of Atreus, one single familicide can snowball into generations of wives killing husbands and children killing their parents. Elektra’s fate is predestined in a way. Terrible acts are committed against Agamemnon, Agamemnon commits terrible acts against his wife and daughter, Clymenestra commits terrible acts against Agamemnon. These characters take “an eye for an eye” very literally and this novel leaves a personal message that forgiveness may be very hard, but breaking generational curses is ideal to willfully spurring them on, as these characters tend to do.

The story follows wife of Agamemnon, Clymenestra, who is sister of Helen of Sparta, and her daughter Elektra, most beloved of her father. From girlhood, to the Trojan war, we see both sides of the conflict unfold. In Troy, sister of Hector and Paris, Cassandra, is cursed by Apollo to know the hellfire which will come, but no one will believe her words.

The audiobook has a unique narrator for each female protagonist, and I was never confused as to who I was following or which part of the story I was listening to.

I was unfamiliar with some aspects of the story, like Elektra’s role, but the parts I was familiar with were rewritten in an interesting way that I never found it dull. I am here for these Greek retellings, and I can’t wait to see what Jennifer Saint releases next.

With Jennifer Saint’s ability to replicate a mythological tone, an ancient tale featuring a woman who assists with her mother’s murder, and a contemporary feminist-lens, this book had so much potential. And yet, it fell flat.

It reads like a student trying to reach the word-count on an essay. It’s 300 pages of exposition, filler, and telling rather than showing. It feels like the characters are sitting around and stalling until enough pages have passed since the last murder so that they can kill someone else. It’s boring. Elektra, Clytemnestra, and Cassandra’s stories are incredibly interesting on their own, but none of them get the justice they deserve because—for some reason—the book is multi-POV.

I despise multi-POV stories. The technique is elementary at best; it crams too many moving parts into a story, thus watering-down the narrative. This book is no exception. The multiple narrators do nothing to enhance the story. Cassandra, as interesting as she is, adds nothing to the central plot; her sections read like Song of Achilles fanfic—the sequel no one asked for. Clytemnestra’s sections are arguably the best—she’s the most interesting, dynamic, and fleshed-out character, and the book should have been titled after her. However, the book is titled Elektra, and her story takes up 1/3 of the book—IF THAT. To add insult to injury, she is the driest and most unlikeable character in this book—not because the other points-of-views enrich the reader’s insight into Elektra’s selfishness, but because her only personality trait is that she has mommy issues.

As a work of feminist criticism, the book is fine. It has enough subtle commentary about womanhood, marriage, and sex to be dissected and analysed. As a whole, however, it is boring, vapid, and surface-level.

Sadly I found this to only be okay. This subject has been explored over and over again recently so to even begin to stand out you need to be amazing and this book just wasn't. I felt like this was just middle of the pack. Nothing about this really jumped out at me. I really wanted to love this but I just couldn't.

Ariadne by this author has been on my list for awhile so I was excited to check out this new work by her. I am still not entirely sure how I feel about it despite several days of ruminating.

Elektra follows three stories around the events of the Trojan War. Cassandra, a Trojan princess gifted with visions of the future but cursed to have no one believe her, Clytemnestra, the sister of Helen and wife of the Greek leader Agammenon, and Elektra, daughter of Clytemnestra and Agammenon.

If you don’t know Greek mythology or what an Elektra complex is then I don’t know if you will like this better or worse than I did. I came in only knowing the bare bones about these characters and how it plays out.

I did really like Cassandra and Clytemnestra’s stories. I thought both of these characters had depth and were easy to understand and their stories made stronger tragedies because of it. My big problem comes from our main(?) character: Elektra. I never felt like she was a fully realized character. Everything about her only stems from her relationship with her father. Her motivations, interests, and path all revolve around this man. Literally nothing else seems to cause a ripple of interest in her. I found myself wondering if she was a sociopath with an obsessive disorder of some kind but the ending made me think we weren’t supposed to think that? Or was this a case of the villain of the story winning?

I have no idea and I feel like it was this book's job to make me understand her and it didn’t. So I found myself completely bored by her perspective and just waiting until we could get to another one. If I could shear Elektra out of this story, I think I would like it better.

Elektra also had some really weird stuff to say about rape and I just don’t enjoy having to listen to it.

Like I said though, I enjoyed Cassandra and Clytemnestra’s stories much much more. I wish they were a separate book so I could rate them better.

As it is, this book gets a three stars for being ⅔rds good. I will still probably check out Ariadne.

Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for a copy of audiobook in exchange for a review. This was narrated by Beth Eyre, Jane Collingwood, and Julie Teal who all did a good job. Also, I think that had some interesting production like it sounded weird sometimes like they were talking in an amphitheater but thats like how its supposed to be told so that was kind of cool.

Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by NetGalley and Macmillan Audio in exchange for an honest review.

Content Warning: Murder, Talks of Suicide, Sexual Assault

So the title is somewhat misleading as Elektra is not the main focus of this novel. The plot is split between Clytemnestra, Cassandra, and Elektra so readers get multiple points of views as we watch what leads up to the Trojan War with the main focus on Clytemnestra. Honestly, I wish we had been given more of Cassandra's story.

This is a hard novel to read given the violence against women that is ever present in Greek mythology. It's not a feel-good, happy story. There were parts that I really liked and others that I felt missed the mark. It's a good read, but not my favorite of the recent novels that have come out giving the women in Greek mythology a voice.

As an audiobook, this was a challenging narrative to follow since chapters aren't titled by which POV is narrating it. There were a few chapters where it took a little bit before I figured out which woman was taking the lead. The audiobook narration is split between three people but their voices sounded similar enough that there wasn't a clear distinction. That being said, Beth Eyre, Jane Collingwood, and Julie Teal do a good job with the audiobook narration.

I was provided an audio arc via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

I loved this! I've always loved Greek mythology and I'm really enjoying the retellings from the female perspective. If you enjoyed [book:Ariadne|54860614] or [book:Circe|35959740], you are going to love this! I really enjoyed Ariadne by the same author, and was really excited to see she had another retelling coming out. This follows Elektra, Cassandra, and Clytemnestra who are all tied to the house of Atreus in some way. They were all mentioned in the mythology I've read over the years, but not in great detail. Most of what we know about the Trojan war focuses on the men Achilles, Paris, Hector, etc. with Helen being the main woman involved in the conflict. This spans the years before, during and after the war. While Helen is mentioned, Clytemnestra, Helen's twin is one of our main narrator's and she gives us alot of commentary leading up to the events that take place throughout the story. I really enjoyed Saint's poetic writing style and it works really well in the format of a retelling of Greek myths.

Each of the women give us a very different perspective of the events that are taking place throughout their lives. Each one of them has suffered great betrayals and has a very different view on the Trojan war. Clytemnestra is wants to save her sister, but is filled with rage by the acts of her husband. Cassandra is cursed by Apollo and is forced to watch her beloved city fall and can do nothing to stop it. Elektra, daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, is saddened by what her father has done, but like many Greeks accepts that it was necessary to please the gods. She cannot accept her mothers behavior and feels she has dishonored their family. In the end all three women end up in very similar situations and their lives are filled with violence and sadness. Some of the tragedy that befell them was of their own making, while some of it was at the hands of those they kept company with.

I very much enjoyed the audio narration. Each character is voiced by a different narrator so you can tell the different women apart while listening. I do think it would have been nice had they announced which perspective each chapter was from, which may be resolved in the final audiobook. I understand that the print book has the name listed in the chapter heading.

I've never been particularly interested in Greek mythology, but I have found that I appreciate and enjoy retellings from female perspectives. In this, Elektra does not disappoint. I found myself so easily identifying and grieving with Clytemnestra and Cassandra, thought it took almost the entirety of the book to feel any correlation with Elektra, and even that was slight. I wanted it to be more compelling on behalf of the titular character. Elektra is not, however, the first book I've enjoyed in which I did not like the character in greatest focus, so I did not let it sour my enjoyment of the sweeping and mesmeric tale of the other women.

Greek tragedies are depressing as is, but the Trojan War is something else entirely. And for those who listened to The Women of Troy or The Song of Achilles, the content isn't anything new. But she provides such a lyrical voice to Clytemnestra, Elektra, and Cassandra that you don't get to hear in most retellings. They have hopes and joys throughout all of the suffering. I also loved having 3 narrators, as it helped me distinguish between the characters. But this book is still *very* depressing to listen to due to its subject matter. Good on Jennifer Saint for making all of the rape and murder somewhat palatable though!

*Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for an ALC in exchange for my honest review*

We probably all know the story about the fall of Troy by this point, but Elektra provides a fresh take by giving three distinct female perspectives coinciding with the Trojan war. Cassandra is a daughter of Troy blessed by Apollo with the ability of foresight but no one will believe the things she says. Clytemnestra is Helen's sister (i.e. Helen the catalyst for Troy's demise) and wife to Agamemnon, King of Mycenae of the House of Atreus, she sets out on a course of revenge after losing her daughter Iphigenia. Elektra is one of Clytemnestra's daughters who is beyond loyal to her father and condones everything he does in the process of obtaining victory.

I was vaguely familiar with Cassandra from previous Greek stories, but didn't recall much about Clytemnestra and Elektra. I appreciated how Saint really brought these complex women to life. I will say that for a book with the title Elektra, I felt like she was the least important of the three female POVs for most of the book, and I really just could not connect with her blind faith/devotion to a man that she barely knew. If you enjoy Greek mythology stories you should check out Elektra.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thank you Net Galley for this advanced Audiobook. I am voluntarily leaving my honest review.

I was very excited to receive an advanced copy of this book as I had enjoyed Ariadne, written by the same author.

Initially, I had difficulty following this book as the chapters were quite long and I had trouble associating a new narrator's voice with a different character. I found myself going back to determine which of the three narrators were speaking: Clytemnestra, Cassandra, or Elektra. This could have easily been remedied by having the narrator state the name at the beginning of each chapter.

I found the plot to be very slow at times, but the author does an excellent job describing the intricacies of the relationship between mother and daughter. The writing was beautiful and creative, giving insight to all three of the narrators.

I have long been a fan of Greek mythology, and when I see a new retelling, I instantly gravitate towards it. I really enjoyed Jennifer Saint's previous book, Ariade, and was excited to get a chance to read Elektra! As it happened, I read this shortly after reading Clare Heywood's excellent Daughters of Sparta, which tells much the same story, albeit in a different manner. I don't want to dwell on comparing the two, though I did feel Daughters of Sparta was, perhaps, done with a greater commitment to historical detail. For example, in the way the women behaved, their curbed freedoms, even the way the names were spelled, which was somewhat inconsistent in Elektra, where the author chose only to spell er name with the "K" as would have been correct, but Clytemnestra and Cassandra with "Cs", though, as far as I know, there is not letter "c" in Greek. Nitpicky, I know, just something I noticed, yet which, of course, did not take away from the overall telling of the tale. Besides, I am no scholar, so likely there is a reason for this discrepancy, which I simply do not know.
The story itself was familiar to me, and yet I felt engaged from start to finish. I have always seen Clytemnestra as a victim, Agamemnon as a monster, and so this version of the story appealed to me. I don't want to give anything away fro the readers who are unfamiliar with the story, but I felt for all the characters, so many women who were used as pawns in the games of men and gods and suffered for it. The writing flowed well, and there was no choppiness when Saint switched from one POV to another, though the most compelling chapters for me were the ones told by Clytemnestra.
If you are a fan of mythology or retellings, this may very well be for you. I am certainly looking forward to seeing what Jennifer Saint comes up with next!