Tag: women

Top Ten Tuesday – Favourite Heroines

In today’s Top Ten Tuesday post, I feature my favourite heroines from fiction. The selection of books the characters come from are quite diverse. As always, there is a slight leaning towards fantasy as that’s what I read the most. However, that doesn’t make up the list in its entirety.

Having taken a look at the characters I have compiled for this list, they all have similar things in common. They are women who will stand up for themselves. They are women who stand in the face of adversity or strife and weather the storm. Other common traits are that they are smart and fiercely loyal to those they love, doing anything they can to protect them.

A quality that many of these characters embody is not allowing other people’s opinions to shape who they are. They do what they think is best, regardless of whether they do so in a way that society expects. They embrace who they are, and all their quirks, and do so with their head held high.

In my opinion, the list of these characters and the traits give really good insight into what I value in women, and also what I would like to embody myself. Naturally, I don’t want to become an assassin in order to protect my family. Understandably, aspects of personalities are exaggerated in the plot narratives of these books! But, these are the principles and standards I admire.

I could go on to add a brief description of each character below, but as I’ve said above, they are remarkably similar. For fear of repeating myself, I’ve decided to keep it to the explanation above as to why I like each of these characters, and just list them below.

So, here is the list of the characters and the books or series they come from!

 

Arya Stark & Brienne of Tarth – A Game of Thrones

 

Hermione Granger & Luna Lovegood – Harry Potter

 

Kettricken – The Farseer trilogy

 

Karou – Daughter of Smoke & Bone

 

Mia Corvere – The Nevernight Chronicles

Nevernight

 

Verity – Code Name Verity

 

Cilka – Cilka’s Journey

Offred – The Handmaid’s Tale

 

Those are my favourite heroines for today’s Top Ten Tuesday post. What do you admire in your bookish heroines? What personality traits do you root for?

 

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First Lines Friday – 20/01/23

Hello all welcome to today’s first lines Friday post to wrap-up the working week!

For today’s post, I intended to go a completely different way about choosing the book I feature in this post. Having read my last TBR Jar pick, The Secret History, it’s been on my mind that I needed to select another one. So, with that, in mind, I planned to pull my next book out of the TBR Jar and feature it in this post.

I’m really happy with the book that came out. It is a book that I have wanted to try because I have enjoyed other books by this author. My understanding of this book (and series) is that it is unconventional in its writing style. It is one that I have encountered in another book last year, and really enjoyed!

There was just one problem with my plan in including it in my first Lines Friday post – I’ve already featured it in this series before. What were the odds of that?! So, my plan went out the window. Instead, I have randomly selected a book on my Goodreads reading list.

Can you guess today’s book from the introduction?

 

Let me tell you the story of a righteous man.

The righteous man of the story is King Minos of Crete, who set out to wage a great war on Athens. His war was one of retribution upon them for the death of his son, Androgeos. This mighty athlete had reigned victorious in the city’s Panatheniac games, only to be torn to pieces by a rampaging ball on a lonely Athenian hillside. Minos held Athens responsible for the loss of his triumphing son and thirsted for blood-soaked punishment for their failure to protect the boy from the savage beast.

 

 

Ariadne – Jennifer Saint

Genre: Greek Mythology

Pages: 320

Audience: Young Adult

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Publication Date: 04 May 2021

 

 

Goodreads – Ariadne

Ariadne, Princess of Crete, grows up greeting the dawn from her beautiful dancing floor and listening to her nursemaid’s stories of gods and heroes. But beneath her golden palace echo the ever-present hoofbeats of her brother, the Minotaur, a monster who demands blood sacrifice.

When Theseus, the Prince of Athens, arrives to vanquish the beast, Ariadne sees in his green eyes not a threat but an escape. Defying the gods, betraying her family and country, and risking everything for love, Ariadne helps Theseus kill the Minotaur. But will Ariadne’s decision ensure her happy ending? And what of Phaedra, the beloved younger sister she leaves behind?

Hypnotic, propulsive, and utterly transporting, Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne forges a new epic, one that puts the forgotten women of Greek mythology back at the heart of the story, as they strive for a better world.

 

My Thoughts…

After reading multiple books about mythology last year, in particular Greek mythology, I added a couple of Jennifer Saint’s books to my reading list. Ariadne was the first, but I also added Elektra at the same time.

The books I read last year that inspired these additions were Pandora’s Jar (Natalie Haynes), and The Silence of the Girls (Pat Barker). The latter of these two inspired me to read these new additions most. That book is all about women and their influence in Greek society, regardless of their roles – as prominent women or as slaves.

I really enjoyed diving into Greek mythology. I have read a few books about it in the past, but it’s a genre I haven’t really tapped into all that much. By picking up Ariadne, I hope to change that. In my experience, these books are also nice and light to read. The Greek gods are never ones to sit down and feast (at least for very long), so there’s always action. I can’t wait to try this new book from the genre I enjoy, by a new author!

Have you read Ariadne or Elektra by Jennifer Saint? Are you looking forward to the upcoming release of Atalanta? Let me know in the comments.

 

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