As I mentioned in a previous post that part of quarter-life crisis is finding and reading books from my childhood, this is one I never had read but I remember being intrigued by the cover long long ago. Finally, I have read it.

Three goddesses, banished to earth by their dad, Zeus (yeah, that Zeus)…

Polly, Era, and Thalia are stuck on earth, and to get back to Olympus, they’ve got to prove they’ve learned their lesson. And they’ve got to get through high school in the meantime. Which would be hard enough without the horribly evil Furies threatening to destroy their chances of ever seeing home again….

The premise is interesting, and maybe my thoughts would have been different if I had read it when I was 9 or something. Reading it now. . . it’s meh.

No, that’s a little too harsh. It’s dumb fun.

By that I mean, the Greek mythology aspect is not well-researched. Hantman has a basic understanding of stuff like the Muses are midlevel goddesses, the Tantalos myth, so on, but there’s lots she gets wrong. She has Poseidon and Neptune in the same novel. Neptune is the Roman name for Poseidon. Maybe she was trying to reference Triton, Poseidon’s grand/son but the point is Neptune is not a separate god. She has Apollo being the one whose chariot makes the sun rise and set, but that’s Helios’ occupation. Clio, one of the muses is spelled Cleo.

Then there’s lots of little references that are totally anachronistic for ancient Greece like tennis, Bahamian resorts, leprechauns, Sir Percival, etc. Like choose is this going to be ancient Greece or anachronistic Ancient Greece, you can’t have both. Not to mention she has Hera and the Furies being the most cartoonishly evil like literal lava spills out of her mouth at one point (even though that’s not a power any god has in the myths), they all smell stinky, have warts. It lessens the intimidation one must admit.

But I admit making the Furies the rhyming trio of “Backroom Betties” (ugh so 2000s it hurts) made them entertaining. Honestly, I enjoyed their appearances more than Thalia’s narration sometimes. That’s a big sticking point as Thalia can be so selfish and immature that I wished that Hantman had allowed for rotating POVs instead of just giving Polly/Era only chance in book 2.

Basically, if you’re looking for an accurate primer on myths this is not a place to go.

As for the characters, they are supposedly sent to high school in 2002, but they act more like middle-schoolers, and the character development doesn’t really hit (especially for Thalia) until the last few chapters in the final book.

Which makes sense as it’s for lower-schoolers, but why not just have them go to middle school?

Even so, there are just random bits of inappropriateness that would have raised eyebrows like the characters talking about who’s sexy in their tight pants, minor cursing, who has Amazonian boobs, etc. Although I must admit there is one hilarious point where Thalia explains who Artemis is-“Artemis is Apollo’s twin virgin sis. She takes out her frustration by killing monsters.”

I just found that a succinct yet funny descriptor.

See what I mean, it has the bare bones of research, a mix of immaturity with the early 2000s sexualization, and yet when I turned my brain off, I enjoyed it. The Muses’ confusion and delight over the ultra-modern world of 2002 was funny as well as their hijinks like causing chaos at the Macey’s Thanksgiving Parade or letting alligators loose in New Orleans’ Jean Lafiette park, Apollo stuck in the body of “Dylan from Denver,” the teacher assigning them to make documentaries like The Real World with their video cameras.

Apollo is also extremely accurate as the overly-dramatic, lovelorn god chasing Thalia everywhere just as he did to Daphne in the myths. Same with Artemis who sadly only appears once as the sensible, serious foil to her twin’s antics. The descriptors for Dionysus and his hijinks were also entertaining and made me wish he appeared too.

I just wish she extended that to the Muses themselves. They mention being into the arts with Polly being the best at singing, and Thalia fulfilling the comedic, adventurous role but Era has no relation to her art- the flute – and is just the boy crazy, ditzy one.

Then again, these books were not meant to be about depth. I’m just glad I finally got to read what they were about.