I love the Goddess Girls series, yet for some odd reason, I don't read them right away. I don't think I got through 27 until 28 had come out, but then I finished both quickly. This one I've had since November.
The sad news is that this is the penultimate Goddess Girls book. They're going out with a bang in early September by releasing a second super special edition. The main girls time travel to back when Athena first started at MOA, but they end up in Rome instead. I'm looking forward to the Roman counterparts. Definitely not going to wait months to read that!
So who is Elpis? If you remember way back to Pandora's book about the "trouble bubbles," you'll remember the golden hope bubble. That's Elpis. After catching Zeus's attention, he offers her a 5-day trial at MOA with the chance to become the Spirit of Hope. He turns her into a golden girl who can make little bubbles appear on herself. She can also shapeshift back and forth between girl and bubble forms.
Elpis has a lot to learn. She takes to being in human form pretty quickly, but she struggles with trying to do five classes, spend time on granting hope bubbles to mortals, deal with her fledgling crush on Moros, and deal with her rude roommate Apate.
The new characters introduced in this book are all called spirits. I don't think they gave a distinction between a goddess/god and a spirit. I'm assuming spirits are immortal. They can do magic, same as the deities.
Moros (the boy on the cover) is the spirit of gloom and doom in the book. Wikipedia calls him the spirit of impending doom and he can allow people to see their deaths. He's a son of Nyx, which makes the Fates his sisters, so there's a nice link there.
Book Apate (the bright girl in the back) is the spirit of deceit and trickery. She's the personification of deceit in myth, and the daughter of Nyx and Erebus.
Zelos is the spirit of rivalry. He's male in myth and Nike is one of his siblings. In the book, she has brown hair.
Koalemos is the spirit of foolishness. In myth, he's another son of Nyx. In the book, she has silver hair.
There is no set myth the authors are working from this time. None of these characters appear in a myth together. Zelos and Koalemos add absolutely nothing to the story. They're just Apate's henchwomen, basically, but the book would have been the same if they weren't in it. They're kinda fun though.
Elpis is in ethicsology class on a team with Moros and Apate. A lot of the teachers are on vacation (or something), so there are guest professors. Socrates and sidekick Plato are running ethicsology. The class is divided up and each trio is given an ethical dilemma to present upon. Elpis is saddened to realize the people her team is in charge of are two men she sleepily sent hope bubbles to the night before...and may have encouraged them to go to war. It's the Peloponnesian War. Athens vs. Sparta. The two humans are Pericles and Lysander. She travels to Earth to meet with them and their whole argument is whether to perform a tradegy or a comedy and whether the costumes should be blue or red. Moros, who followed her, assists in coming up with a solution, so the war is ended. Sigh. Sure.
Apate does nothing to help with the project except cause chaos, because her whole deal is wanting attention from her dad, the unscrupulous dude that runs the Be a Hero shop in the marketplace. She tries to sabotage both the project and Moros and Elpis's they're-not-admitting-it's-a-crush situation. Moros and Elpis save the project, but he does storm off after thinking he was a project to Elpis.
Elpis is called to Zeus's office and he grants her the role of spirit of hope. Ms. Hydra (the secretary) made a mistake and gave Elpis five classes when she was only supposed to be in ethicsology and then doing her hope bubble thing and making friends. Zeus is understanding about her being overloaded and making mistakes. She's given her new title, plus she can pick three morning classes, and then work on her hope stuff for the rest of the day. She's also given a new empty room, so she can escape Apate.
Moros and Elpis make up and they're really cute. I think they might actually have jumped to second favorite couple after Hades and Persephone. They've got a great opposites attract banter thing going on.
Athena and Aphrodite have slightly larger supporting roles, as does Hades. A lot of the other characters make typical appearances.
I really enjoyed this one. Elpis is a fun character and I did like meeting a bunch of the spirits, although not all of them were necessary for the plot. It was a nice way to introduce a few more newbies before we end the series with the four goddesses it began with.
