Review: Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Philips

In Gods Behaving Badly, the Greek gods are real and living in a dilapidated house in northern London in very reduced circumstances. I always love a good "mythological figures in a modern setting" story and this book does not disappoint.

The plot does take time to materialize - I believe it's halfway into the book before any kind of development occurs - but I'm having so much fun getting to know the godly characters that I don't really register the slow pacing. If you're a mythological buff like me, you'll be delighted to see Artemis, Apollo, etc adapting to a modern world that does not believe in them. Artemis dog-walks for a living. Aphrodite becomes a phone-sex operator. Dionysius runs a popular club that keeps getting shut down. Eros has become a devout Anglican Christian - as devout as a god can be anyway.

The character's voices are on point. Since they're gods, the godly characters don't behave in the same way that mortals do. Immorality is something foreign to gods, and they do quite reprehensible things - Apollo turning a girl into a tree when she doesn't want to give him a blowjob, for example, or the fact that Artemis supports hunting. They aren't very nice to mortals, but that's because from their point-of-view, mortals are children compared to them and they treat them accordingly. I don't like how some books clumsily attempt to "humanize" the gods by making one human ~open their eyes~ and then magically the gods will became nicer and remorseful. But this is not the case in this book. The gods do not change their views on humanity as a whole because of Alice and Neil. In fact, I don't think the godly characters have any character development at all - and that's actually a good thing, since it's quite realistic that they don't. I mean, these are immortal beings who have lived for thousands of years, they don't change overnight.

As books go, this is an easy breezy read. It's like eating a plate of Laduree macarons. It's sweet, very delicious, and makes you feel happy after eating it, but doesn't have much substance, which is fine if you're only in the mood for some snacks and not a full-course meal.

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