Antigoddess by Kendare Blake | Book Review #123

 

“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.”

When I first saw this book, it was online, and I was scrolling through my dashboard on tumblr. Now, I’m a sucker for all things Greek Mythology; even if I don’t know the bare bones myself. I like reading books that authors have written in which they portray the Greek Gods & Goddess’ and their kin.

I knew that the name “Kendare Blake” sounded familiar to me, but I couldn’t place where I had heard the name before. So when I looked up Antigoddess on Goodreads, and found out that Antigoddess is written by the same author who wrote Anna Dressed in Blood, I was bummed out. I had previously tried to read Anne Dressed in Blood before, and couldn’t get into it. So my expectations for Antigoddess dropped significantly.

I think because my expectations had dropped on Antigoddess, is the reason why I actually ended up thinking that this book was okay. There isn’t anything that really stood out for me in the story, aside from the Gods and Goddess’ dying. I don’t think I would have ended up liking this book to give it a full five stars. In the end though, I have given it 3 stars on Goodreads, and if there were an option for half stars, then I would give Antigoddess 2.5 stars.

Even though there are 3 different points of view in Antigoddess, there are only two views that really matter in the sense that, these two views are the ones we most read from. The first person/view we’re introduced to is Athena, and then we’re introduced to Cassandra.

I think a lot of people who know mythology know of Athena, however, I do not, aside from reading Antigoddess, and watching the Percy Jackson movies…yikes. – In Antigoddess, Athena proves to be quite human in my opinion. All the Gods and Goddess’ do, in a sense. Athena is quite the character. She is scared, and unwilling to admit this out loud, but she admits it to herself which frankly means so much in her character development. Athena would gladly take on the world for those she loves, even in the state that she’s in physically. She knows her boundaries for fighting, and she still does whatever she can, and a few times, more than that. Athena has also become modernized in a way. She has grown into this society, yet she still keeps herself away. She wont integrate herself because she knew that she was going to be around for a long time.

Cassandra, the second character we read from, is the character who seems to me like a girl who couldn’t hurt a soul, yet when it comes down to it, she can be just as lethal as the rest of ’em. Cassandra is in a unique position in this book, because of what, and who she is. She knows that she has this power to prophesies things, and she knows that one day her power will just blip out. She’ll now longer have her power, which has acted as a safety blanket all her life. Until she predicts something, that is so bad, she couldn’t stop it even if she wanted to.

For the rest of the gods, we don’t meet a lot of them. In this book, there are only a handful, and that in itself says a lot. I can predict though that the readers would meet more of the Gods and Goddess’ in the next books in the series. And like I said before: it seems like the Gods and Goddess’ seem to have familiarized themselves in todays’ day and age, but have kept themselves segregated from the rest of humanity.

There are few things that I like about this book. I like the fact that we get to see these characters, because frankly, I don’t think I’ve ever read from these two points of views. I also like that their world seems to be related to our world, yet kept at a distance even though they’re more likely to walk among us than keep away. I mean, in this day ‘n’ age, how could they not stay away when humans are growing faster in population that we can keep up with.

The things that I didn’t like about this book is that the story line moves so slowly. At the start of the book, there are scenes which keeps the reader moving and reading the book. But then the story feels like it dips off a cliff, and is slow to pick up again. I mean, literally, I took so long to finish this book. For more than half the novel, the story is moving at a pace where snails would move faster than the actual happenings of this book. And then nearing the end of the book; around the 75% mark, the story actually starts moving again, and then bam, the book is over.

I’m glad that I got through the book though. I would have given up on Antigoddess so much sooner if I wasn’t so invested in the story. I’m not 100% sure on whether or not I’ll be continuing on with the next book, Mortal Gods, but I do know that maybe, maybe, I’ll pick it up from the library and read the first few pages.

“Hermes, the God of thieves, an eternal 17-year-old bitching like an old man.”

All in all, Antigoddess didn’t turn out to be what I expected, and I liked a few scenes from the book.

Thank you for reading my review of Antigoddess by Kendare Blake. As usual, you can find Antigoddess on Goodreads by clicking the cover above! — I’m curious, have you read any of Kendare Blake’s books? If you have what one(s), and did you like them at all??

Adele