The Goddess Test (Goddess Test #1)

Review in 7 words: This book was confusing and a disappointment. I had quite big expectations for this book, but they weren't met.

The characters are disappointing and poorly developed, though readable, I guess. The writing style is not exciting and not really grabbing. Though the plot looked pretty good on the blurb, the romance was not exciting, and Kate didn't really take any real tests that I was looking forward to.

Kate is frustrating and poorly written. She has a self-centered personality, which makes no sense given that she passed the tests. I mean, she gets the deal of a lifetime handed to her, and she's all "no! I don't like dresses!" (SPOILER ALERT) and how is her mother a goddess but she's not? And who is the father, anyway? (END SPOILER)

Okay, so, subject change for a minute. Everyone knows that the concept of vampires has been: killed, butchered, examined, and sown back together in a kind of Frankestein shape (meaning that it is nothing like the original.) I have accepted that. I just never realised that someone would do that to Greek Mythology. I can forgive the few mythical errors in, say, Percy Jackson. As long as there aren't too many flaws, and the material is good. But Aimee Carter has completely killed the original awesome Greek mythology we all know and love (well, I do, at least).

Now, let us compare the original Greek mythology with the Goddess Test. I'll only do one example, but rest assured I could go on forever.

ORIGINAL: Hades was as active as the other gods, in that he was pursuing nymphs left, right and centre, which means he is NOT a virgin. He is the Guardian to the Underworld which is apparently a miserable place. He has an awesome helm of invisibility and a three-headed dog called Cerberus and Hades only follows his own rules. Demeter hates him for kidnapping her daughter Persephone, who also happens to be Hades' niece.
TGT: Hades is a love-sick, twenty-two year old-looking, virgin immortal, called Henry, with a ONE headed dog named Cerberus. His only powers seem to be teleporting, and he has all the romantic tact of a goldfish. The Underworld is a happy place where you can do whatever you want. He does what the council says is right. He's a virgin. Nothing wrong with being a virgin, but you're immortal, lived for thousands and thousands of years, and NOW is the time? Seriously? Demeter also wants to help him in any way she can.

The gods even take new names. Now I don't even know who is who! Demeter is now Diana, Hades is now Henry, then something something something something.

Is anyone noticing anything here? No? Okay, I'll tell you. Aimee has completely and utterly destroyed one of the oldest belief systems in the world.

Let me tell you for a fact Aimee, that there really WERE 12 gods, not 14. And they definitely WERE blood relatives. And you know what they definitely did NOT care about? Anger, envy, greed, pride, sloth, gluttony and lust. They were GODS. They didn't have to conform to some human notion of morality and sin. They didn't have to "test" humans to give them immortality. They didn't have to pass their decision through a "council", because they're GODS. And they can do whatever they want.

Anger: Ummm... but aren't there countless examples of Zeus or someone getting angry all the time?
Envy: What about when Hera was jealous of all the babies Zeus had with other lady friends
Greed: How about the time when Poseidon and Athena battled over Athens because they didn't want to share?
Pride: Has Aimee even GONE to Greece? The Parthenon, all those humongous statues?
Sloth & Gluttony: The gods just loved their feasts and could sit around for days.
Lust: Need I even explain? Pretty much all the gods did was run around having babies. And then there's also Aphrodite, who just happens to be the GODDESS OF LUST.

Onto the "tests". How do these Greek gods even care about the Catholic seven deadly sins? And for Zeus to say that "we don't accept lust" is totally not right. The first thing you know about Zeus is that he has NO RIGHT to say that. And don't you think when you are reading a book about being tested to be a god or goddess, you're kind of expecting something like; get the apple that is floating midair 100 metres up, or, steal an apple from the immortality tree, or, kill a hydra or SOMETHING.

I would like to ask why a man (i.e. Hercules) gets 12 tests that test his strength, cunning, killing power, speed and so on, while a lady (i.e. Kate) gets 7 tests that test her humility and morality. Is Aimee trying to send a message here?

Being coerced into a deal to save your mother should involve a few more hardships than wearing pretty dresses and living in a mansion. And I think immortality is worth a little more than not eating for, like, a day an giving away clothes that you didn't want anyway.

And even the way they were presented was terrible. Greed is measured in wanting pretty dresses that were FREE! And humility is measured in saying that the council is right when the alternative is to have your memory removed (that's another thing. The original Greek gods wouldn't have removed her memory. If she said they were wrong, they would have blasted her into oblivion.)

The ONE redeeming factor in this whole book (Kate's relationship with her mother and suffering at her having cancer) was also destroyed. I won't spoil anything, but if you have read the book, you know what I mean.

The ending was horrible. What a huge cop-out. Just... no other way to say it.

This book is written poorly, the tests are a huge disappointment, and Ms Carter seems either unwilling or unable to even Google these Greek myths and gods. If NONE of this bothers you, by all means, go and read this.

The first thing I have to say is that this book is a let-down. The characters are poor, the writing style even more so. The plot seemed okay on the blurb, but the romance was dry, and the tests that I desperately wanted Kate to do well on were completely non-existent.

The Goddess Test is a book about Kate, an eighteen-year-old who's mother is dying. With her mother's last wish, of dying where she grew up, Kate drives to Eden, her mother's childhood home. There Kate meets Henry, just after her friend dies, and he offers to bring her back, in return for her to live with him, forever.

From there on the entire books is only really about Kate living in a big house for six months, where nothing really happens. The plot is boring, as nothing happens except right at the start, where Ava dies. I thought the tests would be all big and important, but they weren't even that important, hidden underneath all the boredom of the plot. I was hoping that it would be tests with monsters, and riddles, but the seven tests were basically the seven very unimportant decisions, not good at all.

Kate was such a useless character. She didn't think through things through when she made her decision about living with Henry forever. Even Henry said that prolonging her mother's life was a very cheap price. I reckon that she at least thought things through before she made a fairly useless choice. Henry wasn't dark, like the blurb suggests, but just off-putting. He didn't really have a personality, and the one he does is nothing like the god of death had. I didn't like him, he just was a boring person, just like everything else in the book.

What really got me angry was how causally Kate told Ava that she died, and then brought back to life. And Ava hardly reacted, the only thing that happened was that she brought out a Greek mythology book and started reading. I think there should of been some disbelief involved, not just blind acceptance.

The Goddess Test is a boring version of modern greek mythology. I can easily say that everyone, EVERYONE, would be better off reading Percy Jackson or Half-Blood, which are so much better than this very boring book.

My 5-word review: I expected to be amazed…

This was my first book from Harlequin Teen Panel and I was so excited to get it, with its beautiful cover and all the hype. But I was sorely disappointed. I had expected to read something filled with mythological references and enough action to satisfy a bored, carsick teenager. Instead I found a dull romance with weak and depressing characters and a senseless plot.

I read the first few pages of The Goddess Test as soon as I received the book, and since there was also a chat with the author at the Teen Panel, most of us (me included) said we loved it. And I did. In the beginning. First off was the extremely suspenseful prologue, and then you were introduced to the protag with the dying mother and then there’s the guy in the middle of the road who disappeared(!). All very intriguing. I loved the indescribable affection Kate has for her mom, and when she goes to school, all the characters seemed so vivid: the bubbly but jealous Ava, the mysterious jock Dylan, and of course, the unpopular nice guy James. Kate herself seemed highly relatable. I saw myself in her: the way she put up a wall and was disinclined to make friends (she was going to move back soon anyway), her quietly strong personality (I know that sounds like a compliment to myself LOL), and how she never really did learn how to swim. The scene where Ava tries to leave Kate by the river, but hits her head on a rock and dies, and is brought back to life by the hot and mysterious Henry (in exchange for her reading about Persephone and “being ready”) is both scary and gripping. Unfortunately, that was the book’s high point and it just went down from there.
The Goddess Test (Goddess Test, #1)
Awesome alternate cover

Now I hate trashing books and I also hate spoilers, so without going into too much detail, I can say that
compared to the beginning, the rest was very slow-paced and romance was the main element, which bothered me. It might just be my dislike of romance novels in general. It’s possible that it’s my own taste and not the author’s sudden change of writing style, but you know what? I enjoyed Virtuosity. I adored Geek Girl. Heck, Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite classics ever. So why not The Goddess Test?
• The slow pace. For most of the book, you’re just slogging through each of her insignificant little problems where I could have been spending time on Henry’s job as Hades, or more of the backgrounds of other characters (I know virtually nothing about Ella) or even a little more action in there somewhere.
• It just flew through the tests. I do like how she quietly inserted them in during every day life, but quickly narrating them in order to hide that they are tests also makes them seem really easy.
• Henry. I’m sorry but Henry just seemed like a watered-down version of Edward from Twilight – the same dark, pessimistic mood, the same extreme protectiveness, the quiet, fierce, inexplicable love.
• Speaking of which, the love. Inexplicable is exactly the right word for it. Just like Edward/Bella, Kate and Henry are just suddenly attracted to each other for some unexplained reason and before you know it, they’re deeply in love. Why? How? *shrug*
• The end. The way the gods’ identities and the judgement and the explanation of the tests was hurried, you’d think there was a tornado coming through when Carter wrote it. Could’ve at least told us why these gods were these specific people.

Overall, I’m very disappointed with how this book turned out. I’ll want to read Book 2 (or rather Book 1.5) just to see what happens, but I’ve kinda lost interest. Sadface.