Hey everyone! Hope y'all enjoy this review :)
The Goddess Test is the first in a series by Aimee Carter. Goodreads says:
It's always been just Kate and her mom—and her mother is dying. Her last wish? To move back to her childhood home. So Kate's going to start at a new school with no friends, no other family and the fear her mother won't live past the fall.Then she meets Henry. Dark. Tortured. And mesmerizing. He claims to be Hades, god of the Underworld—and if she accepts his bargain, he'll keep her mother alive while Kate tries to pass seven tests.
Kate is sure he's crazy—until she sees him bring a girl back from the dead. Now saving her mother seems crazily possible. If she succeeds, she'll become Henry's future bride, and a goddess.
At first, this book frustrated me. Something was just off, and I couldn't explain why. But as I continued reading, I really got into The Goddess Test. There was just something enjoyable about this book that made me smile. Plus I literally could not for the life of me predict any of the plot twists, and that in itself is amazing. I know there are a lot of issues with this book, but for some reason I just loved every second. With that said, I do have issues with this book. The slut shaming for example. Even though I admittedly was a bit annoyed at the behavior of the character who was slut-shamed, but I still was bothered that the shaming occurred. Also after the book was over, and I read the list of who was which God/Goddess in the manor, I was kind of perplexed at the villain. I won't go into details, but the God/Goddess the villain is supposed to be made no sense when it came to their reasons as to why they were the villain. I also didn't like Kate's personality all too terribly much.
Speaking of Kate, lets chat about our intrepid heroine. As I've said, I didn't like her personality too much. The problem was there was a lack of it. I felt like Kate was like so many other heroines from dozens of other YA novels. I also did not like that she really slut-shamed that unnamed character. I also didn't like some of her motives behind her choices. She also spent a lot of time in her own mind moping and over-analyzing everything, especially her relationship with Henry. Now we come to Henry, the romantic lead. He definitely fit the Brooding Hero archetype. He also had the formal cadence that remind me of a certain beloved vampire. He was ok at best, but I didn't really find him all that romantic. His brooding got in the way of him truly becoming a great character, and even though there were some sweet moments, I felt like the romance was one-sided on Kate's side. The other characters were okay at best.
The writing was surprisingly good. Ms. Carter's style is smooth and easy to read. While she did not do so well with her telling of Greek Mythology, she somehow cast a spell on me that made me fall in love with this book, despite all of my issues with it. That's a pretty damned good feat if you ask me.
Thing is I won't be reading the short in between novella or the second book, because I read some reviews by bloggers that I trust, and from the looks of it nothing improves in book two.
I'll next be reviewing Dark Descendant by Jenna Black.
Until next time, viva la literature!
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