Atalanta

I feel sad that I no longer want to read books like these. I love the retellings of mythology from the perspective of underrepresented women in the stories. What I don't love is the demonization of the men alongside them. We do not need to emphasize the weakness of men to draw attention to the strength of women. The women can be strong just because they WERE strong.

All of these books fall into this same pit: every man is terrible, every woman is cunning and smart. That's not true in real life and it's not true in mythology either. I feel like it cheapens the story of the women to have it so heavily focused on how all the men around them are terrible. It also makes me trust the narrative less, as none of use are perfect.

It doesn't help that I already know all of these stories as a scholar, so I know what is coming down the line.

I'm giving this three instead of two because it was well-written. The story was accurate, which some others of this genre are not.