Review: The Goddess Inheritance by Aimee Carter

The Goddess Inheritance by Aimee Carter
Published: February 26th, 2013 (Harlequin Teen)
Pages: 303
Source: for review via NetGalley
Series: The Goddess Test, #3
Buy the book: Bookdepository
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Note: this is not the first book in a series, and can therefore contain (minor) spoilers for the previous book(s) in the series. Reading of this review is at your own risk.

Love or life.
Henry or their child.
The end of her family or the end of the world.
Kate must choose.

During nine months of captivity, Kate Winters has survived a jealous goddess, a vengeful Titan and a pregnancy she never asked for. Now the Queen of the Gods wants her unborn child, and Kate can't stop her--until Cronus offers a deal.

In exchange for her loyalty and devotion, the King of the Titans will spare humanity and let Kate keep her child. Yet even if Kate agrees, he'll destroy Henry, her mother and the rest of the council. And if she refuses, Cronus will tear the world apart until every last god and mortal is dead.

With the fate of everyone she loves resting on her shoulders, Kate must do the impossible: find a way to defeat the most powerful being in existence, even if it costs her everything.

Even if it costs her eternity.

If you have been following me for a while, you know I have this weird love-hate-relationship thing with The Goddess Test series. I started off incredibly excited with book one, only to be confronted with a whole different sort of Gods than I was expecting, and not in a good way, but I finished. The second book was harder to finish, but I was determined: it would get better. Wouldn't it? Well, by the end of book two I was sure it wouldn't, but I also had this weird determination to finish the series. And I did. I'm sort of proud of the fact that I ploughed on and finished the series, even though I didn't really like it. So why did I push on?

Greek mythology is something that has fascinated me ever since I learned of its existence. I love the stories and after falling in love with Rick Riordan's Greek mythology stories (Percy Jackson, y'all!) I was pretty much reading anything that had a reference to Greek myth. The Goddess Test sounded like it was a bit more romanticised, but I decided to give it a go. Fast forward three years later. The final book is out and while I still wanted to finish it, I was hesitant. The ending of book two was a real 'Oh man, really?' moment (picture this said by Honey Boo Boo) and I didn't really thing it would pick up. But how could I leave this series hanging after reading the previous two books AND the novella book? So I read it. And within the first few chapters, I wanted to throw up.

We are witnessing a childbirth, in all its gory glory and I seriously felt ill. While it isn't really that long or even that much in detail, I felt very uncomfortable and put off when I read that. I had to put the book down for a bit. And then I waited to long to pick it back up again, resulting in me being annoyed by just about everything in the book. The characters are soap opera actors still, but now there's this weird kind of solution thing going on in the background. To top that off, I was suddenly aware of Carter's use of the word 'though' in every other sentence. While she didn't exactly use it in every sentence, it was mentioned way too often, sometimes even several times on one page. And once I noticed that, I couldn't stop noticing it. It was driving me crazy. I've never heard a single person say 'though' that often in my life.

Having said that, I think this ending was the best outcome for the series and the characters in this series. There are some casualties, some battle scenes and Kate trying to outsmart the King of the Titans which was more amusing than it was thrilling or smart. What I liked was that the girls who were killed before Henry found Kate proved to be such feisty things that threw themselves into the situation headfirst, almost without questions. Even Persephone was bearable. Of course there also was the lame attempt at a love triangle, which fizzled out without hassle. For me, those scenes were uncomfortable to read as they were so forced and didn't feel natural at all.

The problems Kate encountered over the course of this book were either solved or discarded within a few chapters, which made them appear like minor bumps in the road, even though I think they were meant to show Kate's struggle to end this the right way. When a character is experiencing difficulties, I want to see them conquer those things, not give it a small push and make the difficulties fall over, if you know what I mean. Several solutions to Kate's other problems were so mindblowingly obvious they might have held banners and megaphones, but Kate was too stupid to figure them out. To top that off, even though she is now the Queen of the Underworld, she still hasn't developed a backbone. Really, girl?! Gah, so frustrating! She is very good at crying, complaining, stomping her foot, sighing and sobbing but she was unable to take matters in her own hands. I wish she would've grown into a stronger character by now, but alas, I was left disappointed.

The small plus that I want to point out that it still felt like watching Days Of Our Lives or something similar, the Gods actually behaved like Gods sometimes instead of hormonal teenagers. Those moments were scarce, but they were there, and that was a massive improvement from the earlier book.

There are plenty of people out there who enjoyed this book and the series, but it just wasn't for me. I feel like this wasn't the story for Carter to tell, for some reason. I disliked this series, but I do think she is capable of writing something better so I'll pick up Pawn in the future, hoping it will prove me right -- or wrong. But at least I'll have given it a shot (or two).