oh my gods (hehe!) you guys, I can't take the awesomeness that is goddess test by aimee carter. She's a goddess!(I am so punny!) (Ok, I'll stop, I swear) it also has the best tag line ive seen: become immortal or die trying. except the girl on the cover, she looks like megan fox... (i swear)
'Lo, the premise of goddess test is Kate Winters' mom is dying of cancer. The docs said she only had six months, three years ago. Since then, she's been living on borrowed time. Kate herself is no better. Spending most of her time looking after her ill mother, she's not the most social teenager out there. She's not the prettiest, or smartest, she's just Plain Kate and totally cool with it. One day when her mom requests they drive to her hometown of Eden, Michigan as her final resting place (she ain't dead yet!),Kate agrees. Eden itself isn't what it seems being a small nowheresville town. Cutting to the chase, Kate befriends James and Ava, the former starting as an enemy to Kate. Sometime in the beginning she pulls a stupid (and later revealed to be an elaborate, coordinated) stunt, she meets Henry: dark, broody, spends a majority of the book in the angst corner, he offers Kate a choice. He'll save her mom in exchange if she'll take the tests to become his Persephone (please, no Greek myth pick-up lines). At first, Kate thinks he's a nutcase, because who wouldn't think that? But she bites because he can save her mom, and that's what matters to Kate the most. Hey, YA, stick that in your juice boxes and suck it, you want the girl? Save her mom from cancer and slowly fall in love with her.
I'm being completely serious here.
This (no, not my last comment) is what The Goddess Test and so much more! It's about slow love, the choices we make for ones we love, the everlooming sense of mortality. Also, the Greek myths add the seven deadly sins from christianity to form the seven tests to become a god(or goddess) which i found imaginative. I liked Kate's maturity! It was so different than the standard spunky, fierce female characters you read in YA; she's a tired, lonely seventeen year old girl, who's so wise and practical beyond her years. i loved the other gods and side characters that made goddess fun to read. What I found refreshing was each of the relationships Kate forms with Ava and Henry. There is no insta!spark with henry or witty banter. He isn't some new guy in her classes and she isn't the flint to his stone. They're just two lonely souls who've lost people dear to them and mirror each other. he lost Perse, and she's losing her mom. With Ava, they're not fast friends. She (Ava) starts off cruel and then the two become good friends! Its incredible and Aimee Carter does a marvelous feat of making these relationships grow! Throughout the story, Henry's distant because of this growing love and admiration of Kate and the ease she has around him, the first to express herself unlike Persephone (you know how she was uber-depressed everytime she was Hades in the myths? Like that.) Also, I liked Kate's initial wariness around him which later transforms into feelings of love. What i didn't like was our villain. i got it from halfway throughout the book where i had a "d'oh!" moment and Ava's stunt during the beginning, which made me yell. i also didn't like the tests that Kate was supposed to endure. Those were some pretty simple tests and I sat there, wondering, "Is that it? Really?" You expect it to be more life threatening or action packed (I mean you are going to be a goddess, get dirty!). Also Goddess Test might not be for all, it takes big liberties from the original myths. Henry is lord of the underworld, not hell. However if everything is added together, Aimee Carter makes a decent story work and I am actually looking forward to read the rest.
Rating: 7/10.
