This review contains spoilers. Lots of them.
ABOUT THE BOOK
From Goodreads.
The Goddess War begins in Antigoddess, the first installment of the new series by acclaimed author of Anna Dressed in Blood, Kendare Blake.
Old Gods never die…
Or so Athena thought. But then the feathers started sprouting beneath her skin, invading her lungs like a strange cancer, and Hermes showed up with a fever eating away his flesh. So much for living a quiet eternity in perpetual health.
Desperately seeking the cause of their slow, miserable deaths, Athena and Hermes travel the world, gathering allies and discovering enemies both new and old. Their search leads them to Cassandra—an ordinary girl who was once an extraordinary prophetess, protected and loved by a god.
These days, Cassandra doesn’t involve herself in the business of gods—in fact, she doesn’t even know they exist. But she could be the key in a war that is only just beginning.
Because Hera, the queen of the gods, has aligned herself with other of the ancient Olympians, who are killing off rivals in an attempt to prolong their own lives. But these anti-gods have become corrupted in their desperation to survive, horrific caricatures of their former glory. Athena will need every advantage she can get, because immortals don’t just flicker out.
Every one of them dies in their own way. Some choke on feathers. Others become monsters. All of them rage against their last breath.
The Goddess War is about to begin.
Antigoddess is the first book in the goddess wars series. Kendare Blake is also the author of Anna Dressed in Blood, which is supposedly better than Antigodess. I bought both the books at the same time, so what do you do when you have two books by the same author – one which is rated sky high, and the other above average. You read the worse book of course, because you don’t want to be disappointed later.
I may have had some prior expectations from the gods. I mean how could I not? I did read every Percy Jackson book as well as every Heroes of Olympus book, so of course these gods already had some sort of identity in my mind.
The Athena in Antigodess is selfish. She really doesn’t care about anyone but herself, but then isn’t that how the gods always are? Using demigods to do their dirty work. In addition to that, the goddess of wisdom seems to lack precisely that, and her battle skills aren’t really noteworthy. This of course could be attributed to the fact that she is dying- her body filling up and being pierced by owl feathers. Owls apparently, are her loyal servants. Athena the virgin goddess gets a tidbit of romance. I found that weird honestly, like it was working against the laws of the universe.
Aphrodite as usual is portrayed as the stupid, spoiled brat with no power. Her way of dying? She’s turning bruised and ugly. I wonder why Ares isn’t in this. He is the god of war after all, and being Aphrodite’s lover, I’d expect him to be all geared up and ready to kill. So Hera refers to her as daughter. This is new to me because – 1. The most famous recounting of Aphrodite is that she emerged from Uranus’ genitals when he was castrated by Cronus. 2- The other notable recounting is that she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione, which would make her Hera’s stepdaughter and well, Hera is not kind or motherly to her step children.
So Poseidon is the bad guy. Uh, this doesn’t sit well with me. I suppose it’s because of the whole Percy Jackson’s dad being good thing. In Age of Mythology, ( yes, I played that game :D) Poseidon is the shown as being evil but even then it just didn’t work for me, it was too deeply set in I guess. But this isn’t a really big deal, it doesn’t bother me which side Poseidon is on.
Apollo. She killed Apollo. How could she kill Apollo? Why would she do this? Not only did she kill him, but he died in such a pathetic way. I mean first he kills freaking Poseidon and then he gets killed by Aphrodite. That’s just horrible. And honestly, I did like his romance with Cassandra so this is not fair. Hmmph.
So if Cassandra and Odysseus were reincarnated, shouldn’t Apollo be too? He’s the freaking god of the sun.
I fail to understand why the gods would go search for Demeter, Cassandra, Hector, Achilles and gods know who else when they ought to approach Thanatos or Hades. And honestly, how could Persephone die? Does that mean Hades is dead too?
I found the characters a bit flat. It’s the first book, so I guess that can be excused. They need time to grow and develop. I like Kendare’s writing style, which why I probably let my issues with the book slide through. She did break my heart when she killed Apollo though.
My rating – 4/ 5 stars.