So far, I’ve been struggling to pick a book to write about for each blog. My first blog was easy because I recently read the book that I wrote about but I quickly realized that I’ve been slacking in the reading department. I had always thought that I was an avid reader and that I read a good amount of books but starting I quickly saw the opposite. When I look at my bookshelf, I see books that I’ve had since middle school as well as a handful of books that I’ve read throughout college. During quarantine, we all had a lot of free time on our hands so I read more often but I only re-read books. I do the same thing with tv-shows; when I know what will happen, it eases my anxiety which is why I think I re-read books. To circle back to why I’m even talking about this, the book I decided to write about in this week’s blog was one of those books that I re-read during quarantine. I first heard about it when I was in high school and was instantly obsessed with it. It contained a combination of two things that I loved to read about – romance and Greek mythology. From as far back as I can remember, I’ve always been extremely interested in Greek Mythology so, naturally, I’ve read the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series about a hundred times as well as The Heros of Olympus series. I also dabbled in Egyptian and Roman mythology for a while. Along with that, I remember even creating my free website when I was in sixth grade that was strictly based on Greek mythology (I’m cringing internally) so when I heard about The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter, I knew I had to buy the whole series and binge-read it.
The Goddess Test is a twist on the original Greek myth about Hades and Persephone. For those of you who don’t know Greek mythology well, Hades was the god of the underworld and ruled over all of the dead. Since he was there most of the time, it was hard to find someone who was alive that he could marry. One day, he left the underworld (which was a very rare occasion) and saw the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen before, Persephone, daughter of the goddess Demeter. That day, Persephone was left by Demeter to meander so Demeter wasn’t watching Persephone. Hades took advantage of that and kidnapped Persephone and brought her to the underworld. Once Demeter realized what had happened, she begged Hades to let Persephone go but since Persephone already ate food in the underworld, she was doomed to stay there for 6 months out of the year. The ancient Greek civilization used this myth to explain the seasons because, during the time that Persephone was in the Underworld, it was wintertime. In The Goddess Test, the story is very similar except it’s not about Persephone, it’s about her demi-god sister, Kate.
The novel starts with Kate driving with her mother to a town called “Eden”. Originally from New York, Kate and her mother ended up moving back to Eden because it was the town her mother grew up in. The only reason Kate agreed to do this was that her mother had cancer and was slowly dying from it so Kate wanted to bring her mother some peace. As they are driving through the town, they passed a place called “Eden Manor” where Kate swerved and almost crashed because she thought she saw a cow on the road. When she looked in the rearview mirror, there was no cow but a young man with black hair that vanished when she rubbed her eyes. Thinking that she was just seeing things, she kept driving forward with her mother until they came to their new home. A few days later, Kate started attending the high school in Eden where she met James on the first day. She also met a guy named Dylan and his girlfriend, Ava who looked like she wanted to claw Kate’s eyes out because of how Dylan was paying special attention to Kate. Shortly after meeting them, Ava decides to invite Kate to a bonfire that she says the school is sponsoring. Kate agrees to attend the bonfire but realizes that Ava tricked her into going into the backyard of Eden Manor where Ava ends up dying because she dove headfirst into a river. Distraught, Kate calls out for help and the young man with dark hair that she saw in her rearview mirror shows up. She learned that his name was Henry and after he got Kate to agree to read the myth about Persephone, Henry says that he will bring Ava back to life, and he does. Two weeks later, Kate returns home from sitting in the hospital all day with her dying mother when Henry comes over to her house. Realizing that Henry was asking Kate to agree to live with him six months out of the year when he saved Ava, she said hell no and that he was crazy. Once she kicked him out, however, she felt as if she made a grave mistake because Ava did die and he did bring her back to life. The next day, Ava died of a supposed brain aneurysm. Furious at Henry, Kate goes to Eden Manor to confront him but when she does, he makes it clear to her that he is Hades, god of the Underworld. Kate doesn’t believe him at first but when she sees Ava “alive” and breathing (she was between a ghost and a living person) she fully believes him and agrees to live with him six months out of the year hoping he could save her mom. While she stays there, she gets to know more people who live there (some alive some ghosts) and meets a woman named Calliope. Calliope explains to her that Persephone died because she chose to be mortal instead of living her life with Henry and that he has been searching for a partner (wife or queen) for a few centuries and that he was hoping Kate could be that if she agreed to it. Calliope warned her that all of the girls that tried before ended up getting assassinated by someone at the manor but that no one can figure out who it was (it could’ve been a wide variety of living people and ghosts because there was connecting in the manor to the Underworld). As the story continues, Kate and Henry fall in love with each other, and Kate gets to see her mom in very realistic dreams that Henry can grant her. Kate decides to go through a series of tests to become Henry’s wife but as she’s about to pass her final one, she gets killed by Calliope. Calliope ended up being the murderer that killed Kate and all the girls before because she was loved Henry and was jealous. However, Kate wakes up the next day and is told by Henry that her mother gave up her human life for Kate. When Kate asks what he means by “human life” that’s when Kate’s mother walks into her room looking more alive than ever. She sits down by Kate and explains to her that she is actually Demeter and that after she lost Persephone, she wanted another child and wanted to give Henry another chance at finding his partner. Kate also realizes that Ava and James are Aphrodite and Hermes and that the town wasn’t really real; it was filled with gods and goddesses. In the end, Kate ends up marrying Henry and also gets her mother as well as Ava back.
After reading this summary of The Goddess Test and remembering the myth of Persephone, I realize how messed up this story is. When I read through the myth of Hades and Persephone again and compared that to The Goddess Test, I instantly thought of “Stockholm Syndrome”. Stockholm syndrome is a psychological response where a captive/hostage bonds with their captor in a positive way. This could look like a form of friendship, deeper love, or becoming literal partners in crime. Although this novel is nothing compared to real-life situations where this happens, it has a trace of this type of relationship due to the nature of how it began. In the novel, Kate agrees to live with Henry for 6 months out of the year but she’s forced into that decision because he promises her that she’ll be able to see her mother and talk to her. He can do this because he is Hades and he can give Kate the ability to talk to her mother through her dreams while Kate’s mother is in a coma. That offer, however, is also extremely manipulative because since her mother has cancer and is dying, he uses that to his advantage to get Kate to agree. Another reason she agreed to stay though, was because of how broken he seemed. Throughout the novel whenever Henry talks about Persephone or how he’s had to rule all alone for centuries, he’s also extremely sad about it. Ever since he lost Persephone, he’s been growing weaker and weaker due to the number of people dying and the Underworld expanding. He doesn’t have the energy or will to rule anymore. Kate sees this and is determined to “save” him in a way and this quote shows that determination, “I’d spent four years refusing to let my mother give up, and I wasn’t about to let Henry do the same. If he wouldn’t keep going for himself, then I’d come up with a way to make him keep going for me instead.” Her mentality is also a little off in my opinion because she’s trying to make him love her in a sense and she’s trying to “fix” something about him. In psychology, people who have a “fixing” type of personality tend to love difficult people because they see them as a problem they can solve. Kate was also instantly attracted to him because she was also broken in a sense and she could relate to how he was feeling. She too was in constant pain due to her mother’s aggressive cancer that was killing her mother. In this case, Kate seems to portray those qualities of a fixer which could stem from the fact that she has had to take care of her mom as basically a child still. Due to this, she had to become a caregiver at a very young age which, according to some psychological studies, can cause children to not only become the parent but to fall into an almost “addictive” cycle of caregiving. Kate portrays this by constantly worrying about Henry and wanting to, again, “save” him in a way. She sacrifices things that she would normally do to help him and even thinks “the closer I got to Henry, the further removed from the real world I became.” That statement is a little problematic because it makes it seems as if she is losing herself because of him. Overall, this novel is a very interesting read that connects Greek mythology with the modern world extremely well. With that being said, it does have some issues in it that can be problematic such as how Kate and Henry’s relationship began and the personality traits that each character has. Manipulating someone is never the right thing to do and relationships where one person manipulates the other for seemingly “the right reason” are also not ok if the other person is suffering because of it. Compromise in relationships is healthy; caring for someone in relationships is healthy and one of the aspects that constitute loving someone but overdoing either is not only detrimental to the relationship but to the individuals as well.
-Sylvia Szewczyk, Blogger.
Sylvia Szewczyk – Asst Blog Editor: Sylvia graduated in May of 2021 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Human Resource Management and Psychology, as well as with a minor in Polish Language and Culture. While at Lewis, Sylvia was a Community Engaged Learning Facilitator, a founder for Lewis’s Habitat for Humanity Chapter, as well as a LUMINATE Volunteer leader. She currently works full-time as an HR Generalist and joined Jet Fuel Review in hopes of following one of her lifelong passions – writing. Her favorite genres to read are historical fiction, sci-fi, and mystery. In her free time, she likes to paint, do puzzles, play the piano, read, rock climb, and hike. She loves to travel and does it
spontaneously, but wishes she could do it more often. After getting her Master’s, she plans on moving to Poland for a few years to experience work and life there.