Goddess Interrupted by Aimee Carter

Goddess Interrupted
Aimée Carter
The Goddess Test #2
Published March 27, 2012 by Harlequin Teen
YA paranormal romance

Bite-Sized Review
Fans of The Goddess Test will certainly enjoy Goddess Interrupted, though it suffers from the same issues as its predecessor as well. A sympathetic narrator compensates to some degree for the willful destruction of classic mythology. Fair warning: the book ends in a humongous cliffhanger.

King-Sized Review
After passing the tests to become Henry's wife and queen of the Underworld, Kate expects her life to be good. Not perfect, but good. All her hopes are dashed, however, when Calliope wakes the Titan Cronus, who threatens to destroy not only the gods but all of humanity.

I enjoyed Goddess Interrupted more than The Goddess Test. While some of the same issues still persisted, there was a lot more action and the story as a whole was more interesting than the first book's. I liked that Henry and Kate's relationship wasn't perfect, although the amount of not-talking that went on between them was a little absurd. However, it wouldn't have been believable for them to live happily ever after even without this new disaster, and that was fairly well done.

I'm rather surprised at how much I sympathize with Kate. She's pretty self-absorbed and doesn't actually do very much, but somehow manages not to be as irritating as many other YA heroines. Still, it would have been nicer if she had actually done something instead of sitting around bemoaning her impotence while everyone she loved risked their lives to fight Cronus. She could have at least sat in on the planning sessions. Maybe she would have had some insight born of growing up in the twenty-first century. But even through all that, I liked her and found myself rooting for her.

If I could change one thing about this book, it would be to separate the story more from actual Greek mythology. The characters really don't resemble the figures they're supposed to be in any way except for their powers. They're far too noble and too human for me to associate them with Greek myths, where both gods and people are callous, wanton, and not even slightly concerned with morality. There's too much discussion of who's slept with whom, which, if you know anything about Greek myths, is basically everyone and everyone.

Plus it's almost impossible for me to remember who's who: Diana isn't Artemis but rather Demeter. Calliope isn't the muse of epic poetry but instead Hera. Zeus adopted the Terribly Imposing Name of Walter. And even after two books I still don't know who most of the rest are supposed to be.

Goddess Interrupted was a pretty enjoyable read that I recommend to fans of YA who haven't heard a lot of stories from Greek mythology or can ignore that fact that they will be demolished in the course of this story. Actually, because of the confusion I had with the names, it was pretty easy to just pretend it was a completely unrelated story, and there were only a few moments where I had to stop for a minute and think to myself, "Wait. Since when is Aphrodite (Ava) happy to be married to Hephaestus (whose name in the book I've already forgotten)?" If you enjoyed The Goddess Test, I'm sure you'll like this one, despite the giant cliffhanger at the end.

Quality: Fair
Enjoyability: Good

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