Book Review: Gods Behaving Badly

What happens when you take modern-day London, mix in 12 Greek gods and top it off with two clueless mortals? Laughs and a whole lot of girls turning into trees. The title of this outrageous novel, “Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips,” pretty much sums up what you find in the story. Although all the gods of Mount Olympus make some sort of appearance, the main focus is on Artemis, her twin brother Apollo and the ever-seductive Aphrodite.

The gods are losing their powers. Forced to live in a run-down, dirty, old townhouse, they struggle to deal with this new way of life. Artemis, goddess of the hunt and once the leader of the pack, is now a dog walker wearing bland track suits. Apollo, god of the sun, who was once a playboy, is now a lowly TV psychic who has lost the subtlety of flirting. And Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, revels in her job as a phone sex operator.

When Apollo and Aphrodite have a fight, Aphrodite is determined to give Apollo a taste of his own medicine. Convincing her son Eros to help, she shoots Apollo with a love arrow, forcing him to fall in love with the first woman he sees: Alice, a simple, naive cleaning woman. But things don’t get crazy until Alice is hired to clean the gods’ house and rejects Apollo’s advances. Now, it’s up to mousy-looking Neil, who, by the way, is head-over-heels in love with Alice, to become a hero like Odysseus and save Alice, the gods and the world from chaos.

Ridiculous is the best way to describe this romantic comedy. Promiscuous sex, Scrabble tournaments in the underworld and an old, decrepit Zeus standing naked on a rooftop flinging lightning bolts are just a few of the odd things you’ll come across in this story. Nothing’s too crazy for Phillips; she pulls out all the stops.

“Gods Behaving Badly” is one of those books that you read once and put back on the shelf. It’s not profound, deep or captivating. The writing is OK, not on par with some other authors I’ve read such as Patricia A. McKillip. Also, the humor pales in comparison to Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” but it does have its own charms. Phillips does an amazing job of characterizing the ancient Olympian gods. They are arrogant and their behavior matches quite nicely with what they are supposed to be “gods” of. The two mortals, Alice and Neil, are hilarious in their ignorance of almost everything and become the most unlikely heroes.

This novel is one to be read on a lazy Sunday afternoon while waiting for dinner. If you’re looking for something outlandish, this is definitely the book for you. I give it three lightning bolts out of five.

Book Review: Sharp Teeth

Written in a style most commonly associated with “Beowulf,” Toby Barlow’s “Sharp Teeth” has a rhythm all its own. It tells the story of a pack of lycanthropes (werewolves — sort of) who are silently manipulating the chaotic city of Los Angeles to meet their own ends. But someone in the pack has betrayed them, joining a rival pack and slaughtering those who wouldn’t join.

Lark, the leader of the old pack, is in hiding with a plan to raise a new pack, and “the girl” (as she’s only known as) of the first pack has gone AWOL and fallen in love with Anthony Silvo, a naïve, mild mannered dogcatcher. Worlds collide and nothing is really what it seems in this epic story about wanting to belong and discovering your true self.

I found this story riveting, and what really caught my eye is the actual style the story is written in and how Barlow takes the fantastical idea of werewolves and makes it seem a part of our reality. “Sharp Teeth” is epic poem style, with sentences spanning four or five lines. If you’ve ever read “Beowulf,” you know the basic structure of this book. It will take a little while for you to get used to the way it reads (after all, how often do you come upon the epic poem style in today’s fiction novels?), but soon everything clicks and you just fall into the story’s lyrical flow; three pages soon turn into 50.

Now, “Sharp Teeth” isn’t a fantasy. The book is classified being strictly fiction, with a touch of horror (if you get squeamish, I would not suggest this book for you, there is a lot of detailed killing). Do not be fooled by the whole werewolf idea; the characters act and reason like real people — they just have an added ability to change their shape. You’ll find that there are only a few characters that are actually human, but they’re just as lovable as the furry ones.

The book does start off a little slow, but stick with it because you’ll soon be caught up in the story, unfolding with every page you turn. I give it four teeth out of five.