Prairie Fox Reads

  Review:   The Truth About Lies: The Illusion of Honesty and the Evolution of Deceit Aja Raden | St. Martin’s Press, 2021 | 320 pages, Hardcover Field Detail Author Aja Raden Full Title The Truth About Lies: The Illusion of Honesty and the Evolution of Deceit Publisher St. Martin’s Press Publication Date May 11, 2021 Format Reviewed Kindle Pages 320 ISBN 9781250272027 Language English Community Rating 4.05/5 (433 ratings, 94 reviews) User Personal Rating 4.3/5 Objective Criteria Mean 3.9/5 Summary Overview Aja Raden’s   The Truth About Lies: The Illusion of Honesty and the Evolution of Deceit   is a daring, wide-ranging, and frequently exhilarating taxonomy of deception—one that refuses to stay within the comfortable boundaries of any single discipline and is better and more intellectually generative for that refusal. Raden, a scientist, jeweler, and   New York Times   bestselling author previously known for   Stoned: Jewelry, Obsession, and How Desir...

  Jennifer Saint Flatiron Books, 2021 (Hardcover edition) 308 pages Disclosure: This review is based on a close reading of the text and publicly available bibliographic information. It evaluates narrative re‑visioning, thematic focus on female agency, use of mythic source material, and literary craft.   Overview Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne is a modern retelling of the well‑known myth of Ariadne, recentered to foreground the experiences, interiority, and moral complexity of its female characters. Saint weaves a concise, emotionally charged narrative that moves from the sunlit courts of Knossos to the shadowed labyrinth, following Ariadne from sheltered princess to a woman who must choose between loyalty to family, fidelity to the gods, and her own yearning for autonomy. The novel is part of a recent trend in mythic retellings that amplify sidelined perspectives, and it aims to restore women—Ariadne, Phaedra, and other female figures—to the center of these ancient stories.   ...