PANDORA 1

 
 

I was instantly smitten with the Pandora series when it came out in 2008. 

Pandora, daughter of Prometheus, does what she's known for: opens the box containing all the world's evils. 

From there forth, she's on a quest to recapture them and she's only got 6 months to do it. (If you think that's a lot of time, try imagining travel in the ancient world and how time-consuming it was.)

Pandora is your standard awkward heroine. Brown hair she wishes was curly. Brown eyes she wishes were blue. An overbite she thinks makes her look like a horse. She feels like a loser and that's how she and her two best friends are treated. Beautiful redhead Alcie is descended from Medusa, so that's what makes her different. And Iole, who's a year younger than the other two, is very smart, but physically more delicate. She was sick as a child and would have died if not for Apollo's help. 

Pandora unleashes the evils after taunting by her mean girl bullies. She and her family are then whisked away to Mount Olympus where Zeus gives Pandora her task. Recapture the evils within 6 months without any help from her family. Not being family, Alcie and Iole get away with coming with her. 

The three girls do have assistance from the gods though. None of them want to see Hera use the world's evils to take control of everything. Artemis, who gave Pandy a talking wolfskin diary years ago, tells her to make sure to take the diary along. It also communicates with Pandora's dog, Dido. (My one real sticking point in the first book is this dog's name. Dido the dog is male, but Dido is a classically female name.) Athena gives her a small bust of herself which can answer questions, though the voice sticks a bit, so it's not always clear what it's saying. Hephaestus has crafted her a net to help with capturing the evils. Hermes brought Prometheus two shells that can be used as a phone so he can communicate with his daughter. There's also a magic map that tells where the next evil is, what it is and keeps track of how many days are left.

Pandora herself is a demigod with power over fire that she's just learning about. She's always used it to start up her fire in her bedroom, but she's far more powerful than that. 

Most of the book is the setup for the story and the capturing of Jealousy takes up far less time near the end. It takes place at the temple of Delphi and I liked the oracle characters. 

Almost every character in the book is likable, except those not meant to be. Even Hera is written as powerful and cunning, bent on revenge and world domination, yet also sympathetic at moments. I  honestly can't remember how this story ends, so it will be fun to read through it all again.