Each of the four girls has a couple worries throughout the book.
Artemis is a control freak about the Girl Games running perfectly and doesn't let people help her nearly enough. She also is dealing with her budding crush on Actaeon and the fact that the Amazon Penthesilea keeps flirting with him.
Athena is worried that Heracles won't make it back from his wrestling meet in time to watch her compete. She's also worried about doing badly in the race she entered. And there's this mortal named Bellerophon who's a little TOO interested in Zeus's flying horse.
Aphrodite is dealing with Ares being a little pushy when it comes to her race training. Persephone is feeling similar pressure from Hades during her long jump training. But the main conflict with these two is that Aphrodite found a stray kitten in the Immortal Marketplace and she's trying to hide him in her room. Persephone also falls in love with Adonis (yeah...) and they become jealous of any time the other spends with the kitten.
The cat story is my least favorite part of maybe even the entire series. It's funny that they turned the battle over Adonis into the battle over a kitten, but Girl Games has something the majority of the other books in the series don't: GODDESSES FROM OTHER PLACES. And they could have written more about these goddesses instead of a stupid cat. The other goddesses didn't get nearly enough screentime. Or even named for the most part.
I'll tell you about a few, because that's the most interesting part of this book for me.
THE AMAZONS: Not goddesses, but of course the ladies have a place at the Girl Games. Penthesilea is the one you see most, because she plays mind games with Artemis. Hippolyta is the only other one named. These two are actually sisters, but the authors didn't write them that way that I recall.
CHINESE GODDESSES: A group of them competes in the cheer competition near the end of the book. Two actually get names in the story. Wen Shi brought 5 baby snakes with her. Mazu is the other one, only really mentioned as wearing a red robe and hat that Aphrodite likes. Both girls are swimmers. Wen Shi is the name of the Mother of Dragons (Longmu) in Chinese myth. She raises 5 baby snakes, which grow up into dragons. Mazu is a protector of seafarers and she's known for wearing red while standing on the shore to guide fishing boats home. I didn't know about either of these two until I looked them up just now. I like that more obscure goddesses were chosen.
NORSE GODDESSES: Freya gets the longest description of the visiting goddesses. She basically looks like Aphrodite, only she wears a gorgeous necklace (Brisingamen) and a feathered cloak. Freya doesn't do much except for get upset when her necklace goes missing. This is a problem I have with this book, because they could have used Freya more in a mystery-esque search for the necklace. Instead, it's just written off at the end. Wen Shi's snakes stole it because they like shiny things. Lame. Skadi is the other Norse goddess. She's an archer and stiff competition for Artemis. I think most of you should know who Freya is. Skadi is a goddess of "bowhunting, skiing, winter and mountains," according to Wikipedia.
EGYPTIAN GODDESSES: None of the four from Aphrodite the Diva are mentioned. The two that make an appearance are Neith and Satet. Both are goddesses of war and hunting. Unfortunately, Holub mixed up their crowns. In the book, Satet wears a red crown with "a curly wire poking out of it that resembled the proboscis of a bee" and Neith has a crown with antelope horns. Satet is actually the one with the antelope crown. Both girls help out Artemis a few times.
There's a team of Indian goddesses competing in the cheer competition, but they make no appearance otherwise.
So you see what I mean about missed opportunities? Sigh. I really want spinoffs for these other goddesses or at least one-shot super specials.
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