The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter

Title: The Goddess Test
Author: Aimee Carter
Age Group: Teens
# of Pages: 304
My Rating: 3/5

Kate only has her ill mother in her life. Her mother's dying wish is to move back to her childhood home before she is gone.

While in her new town, Kate meets a young man named Henry, who claims to be Hades, God of the Underworld. Henry could extend Kate's mother's life a little longer if Kate agrees to accept his bargain. Wishing to have more time with her mother, Kate agrees. She must go through a series of tests but the problem is, every other girl before her died when they did the tests. Will she be able to make it through?

Although I wasn't expecting too much, I was expecting at least something exciting based from the synopsis.

Starting with the characters, I have to say I like Kate. She loves her mother dearly and I really like that quality of her caring so much. She puts her mother first in pretty much everything she does throughout the novel. She is a hard worker and I admire that. A part that I found really interesting is that she doesn't fall for Henry right away like in most books, despite that fact that he is good-looking. I love how their relationship gradually grew over time and Kate recognizes that even though Henry is centuries years old, she still cares for him regardless. Henry though, I think is slightly dull. He is a nice guy all in all but just didn't have that punch in making him stand out among male characters of the YA world. Everyone else in the book, ehhh. Some were alright while others melted into the background.

What really sucked is the fact that after reading halfway into the book, I realized NOTHING was happening. For the entire novel, Kate is cooped inside Henry's mansion and living her life. I give it points for having me read so far in and not realize that the plot was not exactly going anywhere. Towards the end there were some things but there weren't enough to get you excited. The tests Kate has to go through? Oh man, I thought it was going to be some life-and-death scenarios but it was...sigh. Too depressing, because you'd expect a lot more when one comes to do tests to be a goddess. Not to mention that the gods portrayed in the novel strayed very far from the mythology itself. I honestly should push my rating lower but there were some decency in this book. This is already a generous rating from me.

It was unfortunate that some things were not brought out to their full potential in this novel because there were so many things that could done to make it a fantastic read.

Review copy provided by Harlequin Teen.