Apollo opened his eyes. And the sun came out.
Excerpt from Gods Behaving Badly
As I somewhat gave away in my opener, the story revolves around two parties. The first is the Greek Pantheon. The main pantheon live in a crummy townhouse in London that is utterly run-down and otherwise falling apart. They hate each other, though that’s never been a secret. The second part is the small and simple lives of Alice and Neil. They’re simple cuteness and obvious affection for each other (though hiding it from each other) makes reading any interaction with them impossible without smiling.
Did I mention that Aphrodite is a phone-sex operator, and Artemis walks dogs? I’ll admit that these were the selling points for me. That and the cover art which is pretty much fantastic in every way.
As I stated earlier, the book is somewhat of a light look at the crisis facing the Greek Gods. This can be annoying if what you were looking for was something with a bit more depth. Gods Behaving Badly is about as deep as the shallow-end of a pool. It’s loads of fun to read with great writing and fantastic dialog. I have to give high praise to the Ares-induced fight in the book, because that just blew my mind. The novel also deals out enough detail for you to put it all together, but does leave much of it to the readers imagination which I’m sure can be taken as either a pro or a con.
My main issue with the book is two-fold, though their related so I don’t know what sort of fold that would make. The first is that it is too shallow. Sure it’s a fun read, but there is a distinct lack of character to the Gods that really should be there. I mean they are gods, after all. Neil and Alice deserved a bit more development as well because they were fantastic characters, but never quite make it for me. My second problem is that it wasn’t long enough. I say this because had there been an extra hundred pages, the story could have been that much better. The ending felt a tad rushed, and like I said, the character development just isn’t all there.
Pick it up and give it a read, you’ll be glad you did. It’s pretty short, it’s entertaining the entire way through, and it’ll leave you feeling warm and tingly inside. Like having a fever but without the sweating, hallucinations, or accompanied sickness.
8.5/10
Leave a Reply