Antigoddess review

Antigoddess
Kendare Blake
10th September 2013
Orchard Books

The acclaimed author of ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD returns with an incredible story about ancient gods, modern love and an epic fight for survival.

He was Apollo, the sun, and he'd burn down anything that tried to hurt her... Cassandra and Aidan are just your average high-school couple. Or so Cassandra believes. Blissfully unaware that she was once a powerful prophetess, Cassandra doesn't even know that god exist... Until now.

Because the gods are dying - and Cassandra could hold the answer to their survival. But Aidan has a secret of his own. He is really Apollo, god of the sun, and he will do anything to protect the girl he loves from the danger that's coming for her. Even if it means war against his immortal family...
Sexy, irresistible characters; romantic and mythological intrigue; relentless action and suspense - ANTIGODDESS is the YA novel you've been waiting for.

I really love Kendare Blake's books. I'm not totally sure why but they are just really good, though I will say that I didn't like Antigoddess as much as I liked Anna Dressed in Blood. But Antigoddess was still great. Out of all the sort of Greek mythology books that I've (which is literally about 2 including this one...) it's felt like the freshest take on it, and I struggled to put the book down after I first picked it up.

The blurb for Antigoddess, I think, is a bit misleading. It makes it sound like a kind of boring, run of the mill paranormal romance in my opinion, which it really isn't. And it also makes it sound like Cassandra and Aiden are the main characters of the book, which they kind of are but also kind of aren't. The book is all told in third person, but I think that we actually spend more time with Athena and Hermes and their journey to try and find a way to stop the gods from dying because, well, they're gods and they're dying.

For the first half of the book I was a lot more invested in Cassandra and Aiden's story, and I was kind of bored by the Athena and Hermes parts, but then they started to converge and I realised how integral they had been to Cassandra's story that I think if I read it again I would like their chapters more. Also, Antigoddess actually made me like Odysseus. Which is really impressive. From my (sort of lacking) knowledge of him, I've always thought he was just a bit of an arrogant dick, and he kind of is, but Antigoddess gave him depth that I hadn't thought of him having and I liked the development of his relationship with Athena because of their history (and boy, do they go WAY back.)

The way in which the human figures from Greek mythology (like Odysseus and Cassandra) were brought into the book was really interesting, because they're not Immortals like the gods. I won't say how it works because that would be kind of spoilery, but it did throw a spanner in the works for Cassandra and Aiden's relationship, and showed a really different side to Cassandra without completely drastically changing her personality. It's kind of difficult to explain actually without spoiling how it works, so I probably sound a bit silly, but just trust me, okay?

One of my favourite things about Anna Dressed in Blood was the fact that the horror was written so well and was genuinely scary and gory and creepy, and I sort of wasn't expecting that with this book, seeing as it's about Greek gods and stuff, but she does bring some of her horror expertise as the deaths of the gods are different for each one and some of them are just really awful. Like, some of the imagery was just really horrific and I loved it. Also, there are some really great action scenes, and I felt like the ending was horrific in it's own way, not because it was bloody or gory or anything, but just because it kind of threw me and I spent a while just sort or processing it after I finished it because I was just, like, WTF?! It was good though. I can't wait to see how it affects the next book.

Antigoddess, while, in my opinion, not being as good as the Anna books, was still a really great, gripping read that anyone who likes mythology books, or maybe someone who's not that into them should at least give a go.