The Goddess Test by Amiee Carter

Continuing my explorations of Harlequin Teen, I picked up a copy of 'The Goddess Test' by Aimee Carter, another beautiful looking book aimed firmly at the YA market.

Our heroine, Kate, is eighteen and looks after her dying mother. She comes across a tall, dark and dead guy, and eventually they fall in love. I'm being very simplistic here, but overall the book was a tad simplistic anyway. I read this in a day. No highlighter was required. Our Kate seems like a lovely girl, though I found the romance between her and Henry a little cold. They barely seemed to even hang out together. I like my genre mixed with my romance, and this is definitely a genre work, but the romance seemed to be a prize rather than a discovery, and so it left me a little cold. Warmer than the tiresome vampire novel though.

Also: not a vampire novel! Yay!

I liked the fact that Kate was looking after her dying mother and struggling to keep her life together, including high school and hospitals. I found it a little Twilight-ish while we were in the high school, but thankfully we progressed out of there very quickly. I expect that's a problem any teen romance near a high school is going to have for the next decade or so. I also liked that even when she passed the test, she had to leave and I rather did like the ending. I liked the potential it left open... were it me, there would be a sequel, possibly called The Human Test LOL

I did find the renaming of all the Gods to be a bit confusing. I guess necessary during the plot, but in the great denouement, we could have stuck with the original pantheon names.

The cover for this book crossed my metaphorical desk a week or so ago in this article: Cover Trends in YA Fiction: Why the Obsession with an Elegant Death? where author (Rachel Stark) puts together some of the covers that are current and asks the deadly question 'Why?' Here in Australia, we get the live girl cover, however she seems to be dashing away in a rather Gothic manner, looking over her shoulder in fear. I'd like to point out that no one actually flees during the book, and as far as I can make out, none of the dresses had their colour described, so I don't actually know if any of them were blood red... but anyway, I once again digressed.

Also, this was a nice stand alone, so no floundering around wondering if I had missed something or not. I didn't mind this book, but I'm also sure I'm not going to remember it clearly by the end of tomorrow. Hell, I'm writing the review right now in case I do forget by the end of tomorrow!

Sarah P