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.
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