summersdream (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summersdream) wrote2012-04-23 06:41 pm
summersdream) wrote2012-04-23 06:41 pm
Entry tags:
Book Review: Goddess Interrupted by Aimee Carter
This is a sequel to Goddess Test, and I will explain right up front that this little series is published under the Harlequin Teen imprint so just be aware this is technically a Harlequin. It has does have some actual violence though and fades to black on the sex scenes but it's still a fun little read.
Goddess Test centered around our heroine, Kate Winters, whose mother is dying of cancer getting into a bargain on accident- with Hades. She would try to pass a series of tests to be the new Persephone if he would save her mom. The problem is she's the twelfth candidate for the position and all the others died during the tests but since she's the main character you can guess what happened.
Now, Goddess Interrupted starts in a weird place. Kate is now 18 and married. To the god of the Underworld. She gets back from her summer vacation with her bff James (aka Hermes) and heads down to the Underworld, where Hades barely even acknowledges she's back. Ok he's named Henry in the books because for some reason Aimee Carter decided the gods don't use their old names anymore even amongst each other. The given reason is that Zeus thought the old ones stuck out but um why wouldn't they just use aliases then use the names among one another? And okay if they did pick new names, why did they pick such awful names? Poseidon is named PHILLIP. Srsly. And Zeus is now WALTER. Hades=Henry, Ares=Dylan, Hermes=James, Apollo=Theo, Artemis=Ella, Aphrodite=Ava etc. The only ones who came out okay are probably Demeter=Diana, Athena=Irene, and Hera=Calliope (she specifically took the muse's name, I'm guessing to annoy Zeus).
Hello, I am Walter, King of the Gods!
Hello, I am Phillip, God of the Sea!
... these just don't work for me tbh. And no one is convincing me the God of War should be named Dylan in a million years. Dylan is not the name of the God of War in any universe ever existing anywhere. Sorry.
Horrible names aside, the book's pretty good. I like that Hades doesn't just go shmoopy constantly and he actually is a squillion years old and kind of ineffable and inscrutable and such things. It takes him most of the book to sort of get the hint that his wife is just now immortal and also 18 and sometimes he's going to have to actually say things because she isn't going to understand otherwise and possibly will just go around jumping to conclusions and acting insane. Although I sort of wonder about that age difference. Like um... even if her mother is a goddess she's still an 18yo and he's still a squillion years old. OTOH she's Queen of the Underworld and actually has powers similar to his though she's got to learn to use them.
The one thing I do like is that the Olympians do kind of treat Kate like a kid. As far as they are concerned re:her ability to fight the war they're getting into against the titans that she's sort of like the toddler because she has only been immortal for nine months and her powers are still showing up and she's still learning, She and Aphrodite sort of get stuck together because you get the impression Aphrodite's basically the teenage baby-sitter.
The only really stupidly annoying part of these books is something I'm 96% sure is the fault of Harlequin: Kate is a fucking prude. She doesn't outright call Aphrodite/Ava (her best friend and confidante) a slut but she comes close.The morally perfect uprightness was the worst part of the character, tbh. A teenage girl who has grown up in today's high schools, mostly on her own in NYC, and she freaks out that marital affairs exist? And there's a road trip through the underworld where Kate freaks out that there are people burning in eternal fire and such things "There couldn't be anyhing bad enough that they've done!" Uhhh, this girl got history lessons and watched CNN, right...? Because I can think of a few things that people might have done that might deserve some long-ass periods of divine punishment. Serial killers, for instance. Serial rapists. Abusers. ... How does a kid who grew up mostly on her own in NYC, watching news channels in her mom's hospital room not consider this exactly...?
To the author's credit, Ava doesn't wilt in shame about her nature, but I still could have done without that bitchiness from Kate. I'm only glad that James and Ava both kind of called her out on the fact that she can bitch when she's a squillion years old and still perfect.
The main plot of the books is that Calliope/Hera has turned against the gods and is trying to free Cronus. A lot of titan-freeing going on in popular stories these days, just saying. Hera is sick of Zeus's affairs and she's pissed off that Hades is remarried because she's in love with Hades so now she's decided to kill everyone. And meanwhile, Kate's trying to handle the fact that Hades still seems to be in love with Persephone (who pulled an Arwen for a mortal called, you guessed it, Adonis).
Worse for Kate is that the only way to help out when Cronus captures Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, is to go find Persephone in the Underworld and ask for help. And of course when she meets Persephone she realizes she's kind of out-classed because here's a chick who did actually rule the Underworld for eons, knows the rules and everything better than Kate does. Oh and she's also Kate's big sister, so that sucks.
I loved that the relationship between Kate and Hades is not easy, nor is it perfect. That part is pretty well done, and I genuinely like him. I am not going to call him Henry in a zillion billion years, but he's cool. What I found uncool is that it's talked about how if another queen goes off and dies Hades will probably fade out of depression and I was relieved when later in the book, Kate actually tells him to shove off about that because she's going to help persuade Rhea to help the Olympians whether or not Hades is going to be emo about her absence (granted that I don't think he was going to, but he was at that point desperately trying to talk her into not being an idiot) .
Aand of course because this is a trilogy it ends with another cliff-hanger.
The good points of this book are that Kate is pro-active, the downside is that I skimmed some places because she can go on an inner emo monologue of her insecurities for an entire page. But for an afternoon's reading it's not too bad, it's just not something I'd go around fangirling, because... Walter king of the gods. Srsly. DNW.
Goddess Test centered around our heroine, Kate Winters, whose mother is dying of cancer getting into a bargain on accident- with Hades. She would try to pass a series of tests to be the new Persephone if he would save her mom. The problem is she's the twelfth candidate for the position and all the others died during the tests but since she's the main character you can guess what happened.
Now, Goddess Interrupted starts in a weird place. Kate is now 18 and married. To the god of the Underworld. She gets back from her summer vacation with her bff James (aka Hermes) and heads down to the Underworld, where Hades barely even acknowledges she's back. Ok he's named Henry in the books because for some reason Aimee Carter decided the gods don't use their old names anymore even amongst each other. The given reason is that Zeus thought the old ones stuck out but um why wouldn't they just use aliases then use the names among one another? And okay if they did pick new names, why did they pick such awful names? Poseidon is named PHILLIP. Srsly. And Zeus is now WALTER. Hades=Henry, Ares=Dylan, Hermes=James, Apollo=Theo, Artemis=Ella, Aphrodite=Ava etc. The only ones who came out okay are probably Demeter=Diana, Athena=Irene, and Hera=Calliope (she specifically took the muse's name, I'm guessing to annoy Zeus).
Hello, I am Walter, King of the Gods!
Hello, I am Phillip, God of the Sea!
... these just don't work for me tbh. And no one is convincing me the God of War should be named Dylan in a million years. Dylan is not the name of the God of War in any universe ever existing anywhere. Sorry.
Horrible names aside, the book's pretty good. I like that Hades doesn't just go shmoopy constantly and he actually is a squillion years old and kind of ineffable and inscrutable and such things. It takes him most of the book to sort of get the hint that his wife is just now immortal and also 18 and sometimes he's going to have to actually say things because she isn't going to understand otherwise and possibly will just go around jumping to conclusions and acting insane. Although I sort of wonder about that age difference. Like um... even if her mother is a goddess she's still an 18yo and he's still a squillion years old. OTOH she's Queen of the Underworld and actually has powers similar to his though she's got to learn to use them.
The one thing I do like is that the Olympians do kind of treat Kate like a kid. As far as they are concerned re:her ability to fight the war they're getting into against the titans that she's sort of like the toddler because she has only been immortal for nine months and her powers are still showing up and she's still learning, She and Aphrodite sort of get stuck together because you get the impression Aphrodite's basically the teenage baby-sitter.
The only really stupidly annoying part of these books is something I'm 96% sure is the fault of Harlequin: Kate is a fucking prude. She doesn't outright call Aphrodite/Ava (her best friend and confidante) a slut but she comes close.The morally perfect uprightness was the worst part of the character, tbh. A teenage girl who has grown up in today's high schools, mostly on her own in NYC, and she freaks out that marital affairs exist? And there's a road trip through the underworld where Kate freaks out that there are people burning in eternal fire and such things "There couldn't be anyhing bad enough that they've done!" Uhhh, this girl got history lessons and watched CNN, right...? Because I can think of a few things that people might have done that might deserve some long-ass periods of divine punishment. Serial killers, for instance. Serial rapists. Abusers. ... How does a kid who grew up mostly on her own in NYC, watching news channels in her mom's hospital room not consider this exactly...?
To the author's credit, Ava doesn't wilt in shame about her nature, but I still could have done without that bitchiness from Kate. I'm only glad that James and Ava both kind of called her out on the fact that she can bitch when she's a squillion years old and still perfect.
The main plot of the books is that Calliope/Hera has turned against the gods and is trying to free Cronus. A lot of titan-freeing going on in popular stories these days, just saying. Hera is sick of Zeus's affairs and she's pissed off that Hades is remarried because she's in love with Hades so now she's decided to kill everyone. And meanwhile, Kate's trying to handle the fact that Hades still seems to be in love with Persephone (who pulled an Arwen for a mortal called, you guessed it, Adonis).
Worse for Kate is that the only way to help out when Cronus captures Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, is to go find Persephone in the Underworld and ask for help. And of course when she meets Persephone she realizes she's kind of out-classed because here's a chick who did actually rule the Underworld for eons, knows the rules and everything better than Kate does. Oh and she's also Kate's big sister, so that sucks.
I loved that the relationship between Kate and Hades is not easy, nor is it perfect. That part is pretty well done, and I genuinely like him. I am not going to call him Henry in a zillion billion years, but he's cool. What I found uncool is that it's talked about how if another queen goes off and dies Hades will probably fade out of depression and I was relieved when later in the book, Kate actually tells him to shove off about that because she's going to help persuade Rhea to help the Olympians whether or not Hades is going to be emo about her absence (granted that I don't think he was going to, but he was at that point desperately trying to talk her into not being an idiot) .
Aand of course because this is a trilogy it ends with another cliff-hanger.
The good points of this book are that Kate is pro-active, the downside is that I skimmed some places because she can go on an inner emo monologue of her insecurities for an entire page. But for an afternoon's reading it's not too bad, it's just not something I'd go around fangirling, because... Walter king of the gods. Srsly. DNW.