Goddess Girls 28

The 28th Goddess Girls book finally gives Artemis her third focus book. Her last was #7! 

This one retells the obscure myth of Alpheus the river god and his unwanted pursuit of Arethusa the sea nymph, as well as the variant where Alpheus pursues Artemis herself. I love that they're getting obscure with the myths. 

Artemis is protector of the nymphs, so they come to her for help, though she thinks they could try a little harder to solve their own problems. Arethusa drank from Alpheus's river without permission and he took her special cup, which unbeknownst to him, increases any magical powers the bearer has. To get her cup back, she has to agree to go out with him. She's devastated by this and four other nature nymphs call upon Artemis to help her. 

Artemis has difficulty bargaining with Alpheus though and she gets a bit in over her head with this one. He cheats during a contest and then she's the one who's supposed to go out with him. She asks why he's so dead set on a date that he's relying on trickery, but he won't tell. With the help of the other GGs and the nymphs, Artemis comes up with a plan, but ends up skirting around it so Arethusa ends up voicing the same idea herself. Alpheus said he liked Artemis so much that he could pick her out of every girl in the world, so they gather fifty nymphs and the four GGs, all dress in nymph chitons, hide their hair under leafy caps, and smear mud all over themselves. Alpheus tries a couple tricky plans, but the girls stop him and he guesses incorrectly, though he ends up choosing a nymph that actually does like him. He's relieved that he's still himself and Artemis learns later that Poseidon decided to trick him. He told Alpheus that Zeus decreed every boy had to get a date before his 13th birthday or he'd turn into slugs. It's pretty stupid and Alpheus seems to clever to fall for it, but he did. 

The B plot is that Artemis and her crush Actaeon have a fight. They make up at the end and it's he who tells her about Poseidon's trick. 

The C plot is the other GGs finally helping Artemis clean her damn room. Considering the clean clothes spell Aphrodite did took literally seconds, GG 'verse Artemis is honestly pretty gross. I'm hoping she sticks to the organizational system her friends helped her with because ew. Artemis deserves better than to be represented as such a dirty being. 

Definitely not my favorite one, but I do appreciate the obscure myth and I liked seeing a lot of older characters like Echo and Minthe. And meeting new nymphs. We meet Syke (fig tree), Karya (nuts), Pitys (pine tree) and Britomartis. Britomartis is interesting because I'd never heard of her and apparently, she was like the Artemis of Crete. In myth, she's also called Dictynna/Diktynne, the goddess of Mount Dicte/Dikte, where Zeus was born. In this book, Britomartis hates her name and wants to be called Dicte. I liked her character because she was a bit on the negative side yet not a bad character. So yeah, all in all, a good addition to the series. Next up is Elpis (hope).