Elektra: The mesmerising story of Troy from the three women its heart

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The scenes between Cassandra and Clytemnestra were stunning in their emotional depth despite rarely anything being said between the two. It is a grinding, exhausting existence, and every morning I wake and stare at the dry, plain walls, which seem to shrink closer around me every day.

The history of the family was full of brutal murder, adultery, monstrous ambition, and rather more cannibalism than one would expect. The women are complex and it shows by their decisions and with the rationale and motives behind those decisions. Saint retells these stories as they’ve been told before, changing only the camera angles through which we view it, and the end result is… fine. I loved (while I hated) every second of walking through their grief and seeing all the different ways one deals with it. We read her terrible curse from Apollo as she refuses him to rape her (literally whenever Apollo appears on the scene in any myth you know someone will be sexually assaulted).

In the end, the stories of each of the women and the build up of all the pieces kept me thoroughly engaged. A good book is when you immerse yourself into reading and are simply absorbed by the story, which is the case for me. When I read Ariadne, the previous book by the author, I would grow frustrated with the main character for not taking more control over her own life. Except for a sequence that could have been finished in a hundred pages, all the exciting stuff is off-page and I frankly kinda hated every single character in the book.

I would not hesitate to recommend this to those with a fondness for feminist retellings of stories from the Greek myths. This is the story of three women, their fates inextricably tied to this curse, and the fickle nature of men and gods.She chooses not to see things from Clytemnestra’s POV where her father, Agamemnon (Clytemnestra’s husband) purposely murders and sacrifices Iphigenia for a wind to take the army to Troy.