Review: The Goddess Legacy by Aimee Carter

Title: The Goddess Legacy (Goddess Test #2.5)

Author: Aimee Carter
Release Date: July 31st, 2012
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Page Count: 275 (in the Nook e-book edition)
Source: Nook e-book
Rating: ★★★★☆

For millennia we've caught only glimpses of the lives and loves of the gods and goddesses on Olympus. Now Aimée Carter pulls back the curtain on how they became the powerful, petty, loving and dangerous immortals that Kate Winters knows.

Calliope/Hera represented constancy and yet had a husband who never matched her faithfulness….

Ava/Aphrodite was the goddess of love and yet commitment was a totally different deal….

Persephone was urged to marry one man, yet longed for another….

James/Hermes loved to make trouble for others; but never knew true loss before….

Henry/Hades's solitary existence had grown too wearisome to continue. But meeting Kate Winters gave him a new hope.

[Summary Source: Goodreads]

THE REVIEW

For me, reviewing a compilation of short stories is a lot more difficult than reviewing one longer story. Or well, it is when I come across a compilation where I ABSOLUTELY ADORE half of the stories but couldn’t care less for the other half. Which is kind of what happened to me here.

Let's break this down:
There are five stories here: Hera/Calliope, Aphrodite/Ava, Persephone, Hermes/James and Hades/Henry. (For the remainder of this review, I’m going to stick to calling everyone by his or her Greek names, for simplicity’s sake.)

Hera’s story comes first and, oh dear God Aimee Carter you are THE WORST because you’ve made it all impossible me to blindly hate the villain. Before this point I guess I felt a little bad for Hera – just based on Zeus being the worst husband on the planet. But it wasn’t until we made it through this story that I was like… O_O. This story really provides the reader with an idea of why Hera’s doing what she’s doing. It even makes you want to root for her. Until you get out of her head and back to reality and realize the lady’s completely out of her mind and needs to be put into one of those white, padded cells.

Next is Aphrodite’s story. I can’t say I’m not interested in her origins, but I really didn’t sympathize with her at all. I mean, I guess the whole thing was a little heartbreaking, and she is the goddess of love, so truly being in love with more than one person should be possible for her, but she didn’t really pull on my heartstrings the way Hera did. To be completely honest, I would have much preferred to hear Hephaestus’s story.

I don’t even really want to talk about Persephone. She had the longest story, but it honestly made me feel nothing for her. Arranged marriages suck and everything, but she treated Hades so terribly that I honestly couldn’t care less for her. Maybe if the reason she couldn’t bring herself to love Hades had made more sense, I would have been able to get into it. There were one or two points where we almost get an explanation but it gets swept under the rug and, since I’m never really given a chance to empathize with her, I really just never want to hear from her again.

Hermes is the fourth story in the compilation and OH DEAR GOD I never thought I’d care for him after finding out how awful he was in Persephone’s story. But I do. And I almost cried in public over this one. That’s all I’m going to say about it because I might get all upset again just thinking about it.

Last is Henry. His story gave me so much glorious insight into the makings of this series: why Henry was in danger of fading (the book totally made it sound like it wasn’t his choice before. At least as far as I recall), what the what happened with Ingrid, his relationship with Kate… I just love it all, ESPECIALLY the end with Hermes. I can’t. I cried. NBD.

So, I cared lots for 3/5 and was kind of eh towards 2/5. And yet, even though logic would dictate I give this book a 3 star rating, I went with 4. This is mostly because the 3 stories that I loved, I really LOVED. They were wonderful and emotive and just so UGH. Also, this particular short story compilation provides the reader with a lot of insight. We finally understand what’s going on with Hades and Hermes. And we get a reason for the new names. And we get to sympathize with Hera. AND INGRID. I love Ingrid, really.

The long and short of it?

Plot: 3 of the stories wowed me like crazy while 2 of them could have used a little more work.
World Building: Amazing background info for a trilogy I’m really into.
Character Development: It’s through these stories that the gods in Kate’s life truly flourish and I love.
Prose: Emotive. Aimee Carter really makes sure you know exactly what the characters are feeling through exposition.
Would I Recommend This Book?: If you’re into the series, I would definitely read this one. Although I might suggest that you read it sooner, rather than later. I provides a lot of information the reader should really know.