Book Review: The Goddess Test

The Goddess Test
by  Aimee Carter
Date Read:  4/10/2013
Rating:  ★ ★ ★ ★

I actually enjoyed this book. I wasn't sure if I was going to - a young Hades? Gods don't go by their Greek names? It all seemed a bit strange at first, but once I got going, it wasn't bad - I actually enjoyed it.

The first thing was that Hades was actually called Henry in this world. And he was YOUNG. He looked about the age of 22 years old - and every other time I've seen pictures of the 3 major Gods (Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades), they are middle aged looking. So it was hard, but after a few chapters, it wasn't that bad since he actually went by Henry instead.

Kate was a decent main character. She was a little whiny at times about her mother - boy was she attached at the hip to her - but it was also sweet to see such a loving mother/daughter relationship. Other than that, I liked watching her face obstacles and how she overcame them. And she stuck up for herself. I liked her.

I ended up liking Hades (Henry) too. He was sweet, but not overly so. He was a little distant through a portion of the book, but I liked it because he was overly swooning over her. It was a little more realistic. And though he's got that kind of brooding, tortured past, he wasn't annoying and it didn't make him be obnoxious to other people. Though, I like my tortured, sarcastic boys, it was nice for a change, because it seems all the guy characters in books now are about the same.

The pacing of this book was perfect. It was so refreshing to have such a short book to read. So many books nowadays think they have to be 400-500 pages. Why?? All it does is drag things out. This was paced great. We got just enough at the beginning to understand her past and set things up. And then the middle was perfect, and the ending perfect. It was just paced so well. And had a beginning, middle and end. It's sad that having an END to a story is an exception these days. And this book spanned a period of 6 months, but Carter glossed over a lot of it just explaining in a few paragraphs what happened over those few months. I really appreciated that.

There were a few plot twists in this. Most of them I was not surprised by. But when the council was finally revealed, one was shocking to me. But I don't care if I was able to predict many of the plot twists. That doesn't make it a bad book.

Overall this was a very easy read - it's short and was written where everything read very easily and quickly. And I thought it was a unique take on the Greek myths. I've really enjoyed the Percy Jackson series which are based around Greek myth also. This book just acted like some of the myths got twisted from what really happened - which honestly, myths are like playing the telephone game - things get mixed up quickly. So it's actually believable to me that some actual events (if the Gods are real like they are in this book) would get twisted every generation it is told.

So I know some people were frustrated that this wasn't true to the actual Greek mythology, who cares? It's believable. And the most important thing is that it is introducing people to Greek mythology - and once they've been introduced, perhaps they take a class in college to learn more about it. This is the exact same thing as Disney and other animated movies changing the ending of so many classic tales so they have a happy ending (think Anastasia and The Huntchback of Notre Dame for example). Yes, we know it has a completely different ending than the true story or the book, but the point is it is getting people INTERESTED. And once they're interested, they will research the true story. That's all it's about. And really that's all that matters. It's a fictional book people! Just enjoy it for the story.

I look forward to seeing what happens next.