Do What You Have to Do - Sarah McLachlan

Dark of the Moon

Author: Tracy Barrett
Pages: 309
ARC Acquired from: Harcourt Children's Books via NetGalley

Brief Summary:
Ariadne is Krete's She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess, trained to become the Goddess' representative on earth when her mother passes on. While this is a great honor, it is terrifying and lonely. She cannot interact with the people like another girl; her childhood friends now avoid her. Theseus, on the other hand, never had childhood friends; he had bullies. Everyone mocked him for her mother's crazy claims that he is the son of a God. Well, turns out she was wrong. Still, he is the son of a king. Unfortunately, said king is going to sacrifice Theseus to the Minotaur in Krete.

Review:
Greek myths ftw! I have always loved Greek mythology, so you're going to have to let me squee like a fangirl about the awesome job Tracy Barrett has done playing with an old familiar story. While she kept some of the basics about the myth, she changed other things, but she did so with flair and authenticity. She draws on the way that history alters truth and creates a really interesting variation on the original tale.

This myth was never my favorite (hello, where are the horses?), so I think I may actually like this variation better. At any rate, I love the postmodern re-evaluation of who was good and who was bad. Like Elpheba in Wicked, you get to see a different view of the Minotaur and an explanation for why he did some of the things he did. He totally reminds me of Lennie in Of Mice and Men.

Although I did not really grow close to any of the characters, the story held me fascinated, because I could not wait to find out what Barrett would do with the myth. Theseus, though I sympathized with him as a youth, lost my support when he took up with completely obnoxious Prokris. Ariadne was too far into her belief system for me to really want her to get things her way, which would involve blood sacrifice and all sorts of unpleasantness.

Anyone who finds Greek mythology should definitely try this awesome revisionist view of the story of the Minotaur! This song, which is totally not supposed to be about this but whatever, is about Ariadne's relationship with her brother, as well as the story of his origins.

"What ravages of spirit
Conjured this temptuous rage
Created you a monster
Broken by the rules of love
And fate has lead you through it
You do what you have to do"