Hello everyone!
It's back to Greek Gods again in this blog post, and I mean, is it surprising at all anymore?
I have a deep affinity to Greek mythology to begin with, so every once in a while I'll absolutely pick something up that's connected to it, literature-wise.
Some are good, some are bad, and some are definitely in the grey in-between, but all in all I'm usually entertained enough, if nothing else, that I want to either keep reading if it's a series, or I read the book again if it's a standalone.
Case in point with today's blog post, although I will admit I had this one sitting there for a short while after grabbing it from BookSirens as an ARC.
I'd read the companion novella before picking this up, and enjoyed it, and because Percy Jackson is one of my all-time favourite series (here's hoping Disney does it justice with the TV show!) I was definitely intrigued to read more about demigods and the mortals they run across.
Of course there are fundamental differences between the books, but bottom line: the Greeks just don't want to go quietly into the night!
Which they could if they used The Helm of Darkness.
As in the companion, we get a bit about before the situation prior to jumping into deep waters:
we get to meet our protagonists, Zoey and Andy on the mortal side, and then Spencer, Syrena and Karter on the other.
Zoey is living with a single mom who's ... not the nicest person in the world, and she believes her father abandoned them after the divorce (this later turns out not to be true because he was fighting to get her back, but unfortunately passed away before he could). There's also the issue of her mom just not providing because they keep on moving as they can't afford rent, so Zoey decides to take matters into her own hands. This action later comes to bite her as her high school boyfriend, whom she confides in, spreads it all around the school (naturally) so she just becomes this tough person to deal with all of it.
Meanwhile Andy's dad dies of cancer, leaving him alone with his mom and sister, and Andy is a bit of a geek, though he does have a crush on Zoey because ... well, because. He's also usually the butt of the joke and picked on by school bullies, especially since his mom works for someone else's mom etc. He does love his family, however.
So then when things start going sideways, all hell breaks loose.
If you remember from the companion, the Greek gods unleash a death storm on the world because they're fed up with people not worshiping them anymore and want to take over again, so basically what they do is wipe mostly everyone out, then stick the remaining ones into god-approves cities and sic their demigod children on renegades.
This is where we meet Syrena and Diana, children of Poseidon and Apollo, respectively, who are pursuing a prophecy which states the gods will fall when two mortals from before the storm are resurrected. For this to happen, Syrena sacrifices herself and allows Zeus to execute her, which springs the prophecy into motion.
It brings Zoey and Andy 500 years into the future after the freak storm which killed their families and them both, and they get the welcome committee of their lives when Spencer and Karter, demigod sons of Hades and Zeus, go at it since they're supposed to bring Diana to Zeus, but Spencer rebels.
He instead allies with Diana and the mortals since that was what his girlfriend, Syrena, wanted, and because life for the demigods isn't as perfect as everyone would have it sound, either.
This, then, is the beginning of their quest, because after dealing with a harpy, Diana explains that they have to take Zoey and Andy to the Three Fates, where they'll hear what they have to do to overthrow the gods.
Of course it isn't all smooth-sailing - how could it be?
Not only do the demigods have to sell this to the mortals, Andy throws a fit about wanting to go home, and then they run smack into the Stymphalian birds which were only ever defeated by Herakles so ... they don't stand a chance.
Well, or so it seems, because they do end up defeating them when Diana asks for her father's blessing to burn the lot of them alive.
Finally making it to the Fates, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos explain that, to defeat the gods, the mortals will have to steal away their most powerful objects - the Helm of Darkness, the Trident, and the Master Lighting Bolt, in that order. They'll also have to learn how to fight while they're at it, but there's a plus side: there MAY be a chance for Andy to get his family back, if he goes along with the quest.
I would like to point out that Hades, Poseidon and Zeus are the High Triumvirate of the Greek Parthenon so taking them on is something you have to REALLY be sure of, unless you're suicidal, obviously.
But anyway.
The four of them have to get to the Underworld somehow, and Spencer asks for help from Persephone, who was always kind to him, and she gives them a week's time while she distracts Hades (whom she hates after he kidnapped her). This gets a little bit derailed because they run into a young satyr and his statue brother, who had the misfortune to stumble across none other than Medusa.
Ironically, every quest line in this type of books begins with Medusa.
Andy makes an impetuous promise to Darko, the young satyr, which Spencer opposes (Andy does the same thing back with the birds and a little girl that didn't make it), but eventually goes along with so the lot of them go to hunt Medusa down. They get separated during the melee, and it's Zoey and Andy against the monster, managing to eventually defeat her using the same tactics as Perseus (aka do NOT look into her eyes, people! Auntie M likes stoning!). They then receive help from an unknown benefactor who leads them back to the demigods, heals them, and takes them out.
The group reaches a mortal settlement that's thriving without the gods' help, where they ask to borrow a few Pegasi to be able to reach the Underworld faster, since time is running out. They are indeed helped along the way, but there's one final obstacle to overcome.
Karter swoops in and takes Zoey, forcing Spencer and the others after her. See, Karter's been tailing them and actually attacked them once before, trying to convince Spencer to come back to the right side, as his best friend, but the group manages to push him back each time. With the help of a Titan, hiding from Zeus, Karter finds the lot time and time again, and also keeps having dreams about everyone in chains, including himself, and his mother begging him to break them. Karter thinks this is something literal, but readers will pick up on the fact that it's metaphorical: the chains are Zeus' orders holding them all down in oppression, and once they break them, they can stand against the gods.
Karter just needs to come around.
Firstly, however, he zaps Diana from his own lightning bolt, which prompts her father Apollo to reveal himself as the one who's been following their progress and secretly helping them along. He heals her, and explains the lightning bolts while he's at it: regular ones are pretty harmless to demigods, golden ones can seriously singe you, but it's the green ones that are deadly.
Everything green is deadly. Avada Kedavra's green, too.
The group finally make it to the Underworld, however, bargaining with Charon to get them across, and making it to the palace where unfortunately the plan goes down the drain - as any good plan in these books does.
Hades is there, but he kind of gets decapitated by Persephone.
Who then reveals she wants the demigods dead, too, because she wants the Helm for herself, to rule the Underworld. She wounds Spencer, but Karter arrives at that point and takes Zoey and Andy to the edge of Tartarus, where they kick Persephone into the abyss she threw Hades' head in previously, and get the Helm. Unfortunately, Zoey loses her sword-hand in the process, and when they return to the throne room, Spencer passes away from his wounds.
Diana takes the two mortals and the Helm, as well as the apples they'd been given, and they return to the surface, hurrying back to the mortal village, where they explain to Darko that they can't take him to the satyrs he and his brother had been making for, as Zeus destroyed the colony a few days before that. In the night, Kali wakes them up, and together they - Andy, Zoey, Diana and Darko with her - head out on the next step of their quest, to steal Poseidon's Trident.
And Karter?
Karter gets taken by another group of demigods, intent on bringing him to Zeus for judgement, since the god knows what happened in the Underworld.
For more on what happens to them all, we'll just have to wait until the second book!
Introducing a fresh perspective of making the gods less benevolent and actually tyrants, this is a fairly easy to read book, definitely geared towards younger audiences as it deals with a lot of questions young teens might be asking themselves today, not to mention behavioral patterns as well. It introduces Greek mythology in a way that makes it easy to follow along, and there's the added bonus of learning while you read something fun.
I especially liked the nifty little trick about why the demigods even need mortals: because previously, demigods were the ones gods used for their quests (and dirty work), they've now assembled them all on Olympus as some sort of special, elite forces, and they can't touch any of the divine objects, but mortals can, since the gods tend to underestimate them.
As I've said, reading the book is fairly easy and quick, and the writing isn't too complicated. Like the Percy Jackson series, it's interesting that despite the fact the world seems to have reverted back to how the Greek gods were used to, Diana and Spencer both speak like modern day kids, not like anything out of antiquity. Again, probably to make this closer to young readers.
The pacing of the story is fairly quick, but I will say that they take some breaks in between the big action sequences so that you get the chance to breathe some, which is a good thing in my book. Sometimes you'll find stories that are just go, go, go, and you feel like you're breathless by the end. This one isn't so.
It does show that the kids are teenagers, though, for sure. I think Andy is even younger than Zoey, because initially he comes across as a bit of a brat. To be fair, we don't really get to know a lot about any of the protagonists besides Zoey, who has a well-developed storyline. We know some about Andy, some about the demigods, and a lot about Zoey, so it's hard to feel completely invested when it also feels we don't have all the cards yet.
The pacing of the story is fairly quick, but I will say that they take some breaks in between the big action sequences so that you get the chance to breathe some, which is a good thing in my book. Sometimes you'll find stories that are just go, go, go, and you feel like you're breathless by the end. This one isn't so.
It does show that the kids are teenagers, though, for sure. I think Andy is even younger than Zoey, because initially he comes across as a bit of a brat. To be fair, we don't really get to know a lot about any of the protagonists besides Zoey, who has a well-developed storyline. We know some about Andy, some about the demigods, and a lot about Zoey, so it's hard to feel completely invested when it also feels we don't have all the cards yet.
For the rest, however - Andy's crush on Zoey and whether or not he tells her how he feels, what'll happen to Karter, how they'll get to the Trident, and will Kali and Diana crush on each other, not to mention will Andy and Zoey be able to find the souls of the people they care about since they can't seem to be found in Tartarus or anywhere - we'll have to check back in with the second book.
I'm definitely interested enough to want to read the second book, to see just how they're going to steal the Trident from the god who dragged his own daughter in front of his brother for her execution.
This I NEED to see!
This I NEED to see!
xx
*image not mine
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