Goddess Interrupted (Goddess Test #2) by Aimee Carter
YA PNR
March 27, 2012
Harlequin Teen

Reviewed by Tori

Kate Winters passed the Goddess test and in now set to become the Queen of the Underworld. After being away from Henry for six months, she is more than ready claim her throne and start her new life with him. But once again secrets and deception will stand between them when an evil from the past rises and the one person who can save them all is the one person Kate fears the most.

Goddess Interrupted picks up six months after The Goddess Test ended. Kate left the underworld at Henry’s request. After what happened with his first wife, Persephone, he wants Kate to be happy and sure of exactly what she is getting into. When Kate arrives in the Underworld, she gets there just in time for Henry to disappear. Cronus, king of the Titans and father to all, is slowly escaping his prison. Cronus was defeated and imprisoned by the Pantheon decades ago for the cruelties he invoked against them and the humans. Kate soon learns that Calliope is working with Cronus to free him completely. With the rest of the Parthenon preparing for war, Kate decides it is up to her to find Henry. As he is being held in Tartarus, Kate goes to Persephone for help. Only she can navigate that world.

Kate is already feeling insecure, not having seen Henry for six months and his cold and distant attitude upon her arrival. With the added pressure of Persephone, Kate begins to think long and hard about whether she can truly be happy with Henry, knowing his love for his ex wife. As the count down begins, Kate makes a decision that could tie her to Henry forever or destroy them all.

I was very disappointed in this installment. The problems that were apparent in book one but seemingly fixable only unravel further in here creating a vacuum effect. Uneven, slow pacing, weak plots with numerous holes, vague action, and undeveloped characterization left me feeling ambivalent. Henry continues to tell Kate nothing. At all. In fact, no one does. Every piece of information she gets is only through sheer will and determination. And lots of anger. She spends a majority of the book laminating about Henry’s lack of interest and his feelings towards her and Persephone. Every time she sees him, she demands to know his feelings for her yet for some unknown and annoying reason, he cannot voice what he wants. Henry continues to be wrapped in his shell of self pity and angst. I found myself unable to like him here as I did in book one. I expected Ms. Carter to develop and humanize him at least a little bit. Instead, we lose bits and pieces of him.

His love for Persephone, while it is is admirable, it’s wholly unrealistic. Almost as unrealistic as Kate’s love for Henry. They were miserable together. Yes, he and everyone else says he loved her with his whole heart but the story doesn’t support that love. There is also the virgin mishap. The big hook in The Goddess Test was Henry being a virgin. Only in here, we are disabused of that notion. Though, in Ms. Carter’s defense, maybe she meant it in a metaphorical sense because Henry has never had sex without an aphrodisiac. Regardless, Henry wasn’t a virgin in book one and the explanation was weak.

The rest of the characters only continue to disintergrate and their selfishness is astounding. While it is possible to have unlikable characters who are enjoyable for just that reason, these characters aren’t able to make that jump. Here we have a group of powerful beings who spend more time patting Kate her pretty little head, telling her not to worry that she is slated for death while trying to avoid going to war. I found that amazing, knowing that should Cronus go free, the world will be destroyed.

The underlying themes of infidelity are further expanded on in here from book one. Kate is very judgmental when it comes to woman, and I found myself disappointed with her self righteousness. I was also disappointed that Ms. Carter choose Persephone to play the classic role of mean girl. Her character is used to further expand the chasm that exists between Henry and Kate. A chasm that Henry is unwilling or unable to bridge. In my opinion, Persephone is the only unselfish one here. She was miserable and in turn was making Henry miserable. When she falls in love with someone else, she sees that she would never love Henry the way he deserved to be loved, so she gave up her immortality in order to free him. As for Ava, I found her more appealing when she was human. As Kate’s goddess BFF, her lack of basic courtesy (she redesigns Kate’s bedroom without asking; paying homage to Persephone) was grating. James continues to slip further in my admiration as his actions reveal him to be nothing more then a troublemaker between Henry and Kate.

The main conflict struggles to assert itself as Ms. Carter sets up the scene and initiates the plot lines. The possibilities of the villains was endless and could have saved the story for me, but since we hear/see everything through Kate’s eyes, we are still kept in the dark with her. Calliope is a strong presence but her reasons for revenge slowly go from structured to rambling, leaving us and the story twisting in limbo. The ending is a contrived predictable mess that only tells me that something big was needed to hook the readers into reading book three. And we are left with a trite cliffhanger. Ms. Carter seems to have trapped herself in the world she has made, leaving herself with limited space to develop and maneuver. I had really hoped that the problems of the first book would be addressed and fixed in here but it seems Ms. Carter decided that quantity was more important then quality.

Overall Rating: D

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