LITTLE GODDESS GIRLS 1-5

I have been woefully slow with Goddess Girls and that includes the newer series for much younger readers. 

Little Goddess Girls books are very short. They've got lots of cute illustrations, too, but don't expect your favorite GGs just in younger form. These are basically totally different characters and the story is The Wizard of Oz with a bunch of tweaks. 

Athena, as seen on the cover, is now a modern Earthling. A strange wind takes her to a magical land. She's in Dorothy's role. Medusa, who's a mean girl at Athena's school is also in not-Oz, but she's not Earthling Medusa at all but a completely different girl with snake hair. She's in the Wicked Witch role and wants the magical winged sandals that attached themselves to Athena.

Athena is helped by Hestia, who is now that fairy on the cover. I hate this because Hestia was her own character in the Goddess Girls series and they completely changed her look and turned her into an adult fairy. Just give the fairy a different name. I love Hestia and think she's very underrated so to see her character kind of tossed aside and revamped annoys me. Then there are the little talking owls. And the Toto role is played by Oliver, who's Athena's dog in not-Oz. In the real world, Oliver is her pet character in a game she plays on her tablet. 

The story is incredibly basic, but it's also pretty fun once you get past your expectations. So first rule of Little Goddess Girls: Don't expect anything to be the same as in Goddess Girls. 

We met Persephone at the end of the first book. She's sort of the Scarecrow, I guess. But instead of needing a brain, she's convinced she's bad luck and wants some good luck. 

I love her design for this. The little curly pigtails and flowers and leaves sprouting everywhere are really cute. 

Fun fact: She was originally randomly blonde!

The second book takes Athena, Persephone and Oliver into the Wunderworld. Hades makes a cameo in this one and they meet Aphrodite. 

Aphrodite is sort of in the Tin Man role, but instead of lacking a heart, she's lacking a filter. She just blurts out whatever sassy thing and she's actually my favorite of the four because of that. She's hilarious. But she wants to stop and her wish is for likability.

The third book has the sleep-inducing poppy fields. 

And they meet Artemis. 

Artemis is the closest to an actual Oz character because she's very cowardly. 

The fourth book wraps up the first Oz storyline. They meet Zeus, stop Medusa by turning her to stone, Zeus gets whipped away in a balloon after giving the other girls their gifts, and Hestia the fairy reappears to help Athena get home.

Book 5 picks up with Athena at home on Earth, but asked to come to aid not-Oz. So back she goes and now we're in the Ozma of Oz storyline. 

New characters include Heracles and Circe. Circe, as you can see from the cover, has many faces. This is their version of the Mombi role, only they're trying to make her more helpful. The Nome King is being turned into King Hephaestus, so this ought to be interesting. 

These are cute little books, but a bit weird if you're like me and you've been into the GG-verse for so long. 

GODDESS GIRLS 26

Aha, I did it! I am officially fully caught up with Goddess Girls for the first time in too many years. 

I am so happy to say that Persephone's long-awaited third starring role was amazing. Persephone has been my fave since the beginning and it has been far too long for her to sit on the sidelines. Her first book, the second in the series, came out in April 2010, over TEN years ago. Then while the other 3 first four girls got their second books right away throughout 2011, she was bumped until book 11...all the way in 2013. Athena and Aphrodite both got their third books in 2014, but we all had to wait 6 more years to see Persephone again. I hope Artemis gets her third next year. I hate that they're only doing one book a year now. 

Persephone's newest book is delightful. I loved spending time with her and Hades again. Right away we're introduced to Minthe, the naiad who guards the River Cocytus. The Cocytus is the river of wailing and lamentation, so it's not exactly a happy place. Minthe in the original myth was a nymph of the Cocytus so that's straight out of the myth. In the book, she has a simple crush on Hades, but in the myth, she was his lover before Persephone. 

Persephone's on a bit of an introspective journey, as she struggles with being sassy to bullies and then feeling guilty about it and then with her jealous feelings springing from watching Minthe crush on Hades. The lesson she learns by the end is that sometimes you see only what you're looking for and not what's actually there. 

The students are put together in a class competition and Persephone is on a team with Poseidon, Hades, Antheia (the wreath goddess, Iris's BFF) and Makhai, the slightly less bullying half of Kydoimos and Makhai. She's sad when Poseidon and Hades are pulled from her team, having helped come up with two of the clues. I'm not sure what the point of this was. If you're doing such a big event, you don't plan two of the clues after you've told the class the event is the next day. You approach those students privately and plan ahead of time, then don't put them on a team at all. The boys were allowed to pick their replacements and Poseidon suggested visiting mortals Theseus and Pirithous.

I'm going to pause a minute and talk about these two. There was definitely a missed opportunity here. In the previous book, Clotho takes part in the Goddess Girls version of the Calydonian Boar Hunt. Theseus is on Atalanta's team, too. Pirithous was also there in the myth, so I wish there'd been mention of him at least in the crowd. He could have made a comment about the two centaurs Meleager chose for his team, because mythic Pirithous was the husband at the wedding gone wrong that became the Centauromachy. Then mythic Pirithous and Theseus both find themselves widowed so they decide to carry off daughters of Zeus. Theseus picks Helen, while Pirithous is after Persephone. This is worked into the GG book as him having a crush on Persephone and near the end, he tries to get her to leave the Underworld with him instead of staying with Hades. In the myth, Hades traps them on their seats and they're stuck in the Underworld until Heracles comes to the rescue, but he only saves Theseus. So this book contains both the myths of Minthe and Pirithous and Theseus in the Underworld. 

So back to the competition. Persephone realizes as the day goes by that someone having a crush on you is really annoying, so she realizes Hades may not know what to do about Minthe. She also sees a nicer side of Makhai and then later on, also Kydoimos. These two have been bullies for so long that it's nice to round out their characters a bit. That's the whole learning to not just see what you're expecting part of the book. 

Pirithous is so desperate to win that he hacks the scroll-gadgets (yep, GG has finally come up with a way to have cell phones...sort of) and cheats. Athena being Athena figures things out and her team is the only one to also get to the Underworld, which is the final location. 

Antheia and Persephone have a run in with Minthe and honestly, I don't blame her for being upset, because the two goddesses did really go on about what a horrible place her river is. But she attacked Antheia and Persephone turned her into mint to save Antheia. 

So that happened and she's wondering how to tell Hades when they learn from Makhai that Theseus and Pirithous have, against Hades warning, snuck into the Underworld. This is when they're stuck on the bench of forgetfulness or whatever it was called. Something like that because it was near the Lethe. True to myth, Heracles (from Athena's team) has to come save them, but unlike the myth, he does save both. 

After this is resolved, Hades and Persephone go restore Minthe and Persephone forgives her, now seeing how desperately unhappy the naiad is. She even figures out a new home for her: guarding the fountain at MOA so she won't be so lonely. And her crush on Hades is no longer an issue, because she and Kydoimos take a liking to each other. 

All of this is handled much better in the book. I'm just rambling. I think it's one of the stronger GG books for sure.

GODDESS GIRLS 25

Every year I swear I say the same thing and vow to read my Goddess Girls books faster, but they somehow get lost and lost and lost in my reading piles. They only come out once a year now. Shame on you, self. 

Well, not this time! Yesterday was the release of #26 and I received it in the mail today, so I sat down and read #25 cover to cover without stopping for much. 

#25 features Clotho, the youngest of the Fates. I love Goddess Girls and I do know not to expect accurate Greek myth ever, but the way they did the Fates was kind of odd. The three Fates are Clotho who spins the thread, Lachesis who measures it, and Atropos who cuts it. You'd think they'd be born in the order of their roles, but this book has Atropos as the eldest at 13, Lachesis is 12 and Clotho is 11. So what exactly did the older ones do until Clotho was born? Considering their important role to mankind, they'd have to predate the birth of man. You'd think. Man couldn't be running around without the Fates at work. Anyway. I need to not think about it too much. 

So Clotho is the Asian-looking Fate, Lachesis is black and Atropos is the redhead. The image on the book's spine is always of its main character. Yet the image on Clotho's spine...is Lachesis. Odd. 

Plot-wise, it's your typical rebellious youngest sister tired of being bossed around by the two older ones. Thankfully, most of the book is Clotho on her own. Zeus has rules for them and she's breaking #3, which says not to hang out with mortals, by going to the Immortal Marketplace for the first time. 

The book neatly reintroduces all the main characters from the series through Clotho's eyes. She meets most of them at the grand opening of Game On! a new IM store. 

The story blends the myths of the Calydonian Boar Hunt and Tantalus while also looking back at Arachne and giving her story a happy ending. Not the most deserved happy ending. She's still mostly bitchy, but she's getting better.  

I liked Clotho a lot and the book was fast-paced. Most of it takes place in a single day. There was one major plothole. Each Fate takes her turn picking where they do their nightly work of deciding the fates of men. It was about to be Clotho's turn, but Atropos ends up going twice. It's not on plot purpose, just a legit proof-reading error and minor nitpicking on my part. I like to mention these things in case anyone else goes "Huh? I thought she had her turn last night" and pages back to that part like I did. 

Naturally, there's a happy ending and I really enjoyed this one. It was a lot of fun. What's different about right now is that I'm about to crack open #26 and I will likely have it finished later tonight. Then I'm going to read the Little Goddess Girls books, too! And then finally get to Skade's Thunder Girls book because I keep forgetting I never did! And I love Skade, so it makes no sense. 

AMERICAN GIRL OF THE YEAR: Joss

Ah, I've finally caught up and gotten all the GotY books read! 

Joss is this year's and her books are in yet another new format. Illustrations are back  HOORAY. And the art in her book is cute. 

Erin Falligant has done a lot of lesser writing for AG, but Joss is her first big character work and I kinda hope that's all she gets. The books are not especially well-written. Joss is partially deaf, so there's a lot with her different methods of communication that I thought was interesting and handled nicely, but there are other bits I had issues with.

As you can tell from the cover, Joss is a surfer. The first book has her wanting to enter a contest to meet her surfing hero. She and her best friend are teaming up to make a video and one of their competitors is Joss's kinda jerky older brother. She's also got an even older brother who's super awesome. 

To win a bet and gain her jerky-yet-video-skilled brother Dylan's help, Joss has to audition for the cheer team and make it. She doesn't have to join the squad, just get in. So she accepts and does indeed make it. Then she starts to realize she likes it, which causes a lot of tension between her and her artistic surfing BFF who feels left out. My only issue with this is that it's honestly not that well explained WHY Joss is suddenly into cheer. She sticks with it because her eldest brother's girlfriend is on the senior team and she (Reina) says that the skills Joss works on in cheer can make her a better surfer. As the book goes on, we see more why Joss is interested, but that initial decision to accept her place on the squad comes kinda out of nowhere. 

Cheer, by the way, isn't like stereotypical high school cheerleading, rahrahing the boys' team on. It's a more organized, athletic sport. Although wearing giant bows on their heads still seems stupid to me. 

So the book has Joss and her BFF getting into the inevitable fight. Her BFF gets really mean about things. The fighting part of this book is pretty serious and the making up doesn't seem to equal the badness of the fighting. 

Naturally, the girls make up, Joss and Dylan make up, they all work together and win the video contest and Joss stays in cheer.

The second book finds Joss preparing for a cheer competition and the school talent show. She gets roped into having her bulldog do skateboard stunts for the talent show (the dog does enjoy skateboarding already so it's not out of nowhere) and that ends badly, leading to a rift between Joss and her cheer teammate Brooklyn. 

Then after a bad run at a more dangerous surf spot, Joss's confidence is shattered and she's afraid to do her trick as her cheer team's newest flyer. I had issues with this part of the book because I felt the other characters all forced her to finally agree to try the harder trick, but when you're doing dangerous stuff, it's important to take your time and build your confidence back up naturally. Not because your teammates are giving you shit because you're letting them down by not trying for the stunt that gets them the most points in competition. I didn't like the other characters' motivations or the way they handled this situation. It really was not a good message for the readers. There's this whole bit about how we're a team so one person doesn't get to decide what we do. Well, if that one person is the one being held above all the others doing the most dangerous stuff and she doesn't feel safe, she's got a fucking right to say so. 

So yeah, I wasn't impressed with Joss. The best characters were Liam, Joss's eldest brother, and his girlfriend Reina, who's pretty awesome. And Murph the dog. 

AMERICAN GIRL OF THE YEAR: Blaire

 
The 2019 Girl of the Year was Blaire Wilson. 

Blaire lives on a farm, which supports a bed and breakfast run by her grandfather and a restaurant run by her mother. In the first book, her father is working on renovating the barn into an event space. 

Blaire is a cute character. She feels like a modern girl with her reliance on devices more than past GotYs, but it's not really a bad thing. Just a modern thing. 

Blaire has many "idea-sparks" about cooking, designing, event-planning, you name it. 

The first book has her trying to keep her grandfather from moving. She overhears him tell a friend that he's against the barn event space idea and is considering retiring. Of course he was just talking and it wasn't meant to be taken seriously, but Blaire throws herself into helping plan her favorite farm worker's wedding. The wedding needs to be done quickly so her brother can give her away at the altar before he goes on military leave. 

Blaire naturally gets into some friend drama by ignoring her friend in favor of wedding prep, but to be fair, said friend did volunteer to help with everything and then did basically nothing. I'm not a huge fan of Thea. She seems like another rather selfish BFF character. Thankfully, Blaire's books are loaded with other good characters to make up for Thea's suckiness. 

While the first book is a little stereotypical and fluffy, the second really succeeds. Both are well-written. I like this author's voice a lot. But the second has Blaire getting caught up in too much planning again, though this time it's for her 5th grade community service project. That's the kind of thing you want to overextend yourself on because it's for a great cause. 

No friend drama with the girls this time, but Blaire struggles to befriend a shy, standoffish new boy in her class. 

Blaire's newly-diagnosed as lactose-intolerant and she struggles with this in both books. 

I really enjoyed both of these. They seem very realistic with less once-in-a-lifetime big ideas than some of the past GotYs. 

AMERICAN GIRL OF THE YEAR: Gabriela

 
Hey, look, it's the Girl of the Year 2017. Oh, poor Gabby. They did you wrong. 

Gabby is a multitalented girl. She's a dancer in various styles as well as a poet. She struggles with a stutter, which is less focused on in this first book, though there are a few incidents with it.

The main plot of Gabby's book is her helping to raise funds to reopen her mother's community arts center, where all her non-school classes are. It's a good book with a lot of great moments and I love the cast. Shakespeare-loving Isaiah is my favorite. 

The only flaw for me is the poetry. She's into poetry. There are a lot of poems in the text. I get it. I'm just not into poetry at all, so they bore me.    

This was easily the best of the three books for me. Gabby learns her best friend Teagan is going to a special STEM school instead of the same one as Gabby, so she feels like she'll be alone against her nemesis Aaliyah. On the first day, Gabby and Isaiah, along with all the other sixth graders, are pelted with water balloons and they learn that sixth grade initiation is a thing. That sparks Gabby to run for sixth grade ambassador, so she can work to unify the school and end initiation. The annoying thing about this book is that the initiation itself should have been stopped by adults. Pelting younger kids with water balloons and leaving them post-its with mean nicknames that can last forever is flat-out bullying. It shouldn't take a student's efforts to stop this. The book has a nice resolution and Aaliyah actually is an interesting character once you get past her "you hurt my feelings so I bullied you to hurt you, too" mistake. 

  The third Gabby book is written by a different author, though you'd never know it. This one has Gabby taking on too much. Her ballet class is preparing to go en pointe, she's working on a solo and a duet piece for a poetry slam, and she's got to make not one but two Halloween costumes while also working on the class Halloween festival. She goes back and forth while considering a very large decision and also dealing with Teagan, who's now jealous of Aaliyah. 

Gabby's books are pretty good, though as I mentioned, the poetry element never captures my attention. Like at all. I like everyone as a character for the most part. Gabby's books make me wish they'd occasionally do an additional book for the friend character. I'd like to get into Aaliyah's head in her own story. 

AMERICAN GIRL: Tenney

 
So here's Tenney, who we talked about in Z's entry. 

I'm sorry, but you can't convince me this girl wasn't supposed to be GotY. FOUR BOOKS? FOUR? 

So Tenney is from Nashville. Her full name is Tennyson Evangeline Grant, which is pretty awesome. Her entire family is musical. Dad owns a music store. Mom runs a hot chicken food truck. Dad, Tenney and her brother are a band, though you don't hear much about them after the beginning of the first book. Tenney is a singer/songwriter who wants a career in music. 

Book 1 is her struggling with her parents not wanting her to start her music career yet, despite her getting a really good opportunity. 

Book 2 has Tenney struggling with handling critique and dealing with a drummer/musical collaborator who she doesn't get along with. She's also got friend drama, because she's supposed to be helping best friend Jaya (on the cover there) with a fundraising effort for Jaya's cousin in Bangladesh whose school got damaged by a tropical storm. Jaya is getting more help from Holliday, a girl Tenney doesn't trust because Holliday is frequently mean to her. 

Book 3 is pretty much Tenney vs. Logan. Now that they've signed a contract together to play as a duo, they've got to start really collaborating on original songs. Logan tends to not look very dedicated though and it's getting to Tenney. Turns out Logan has a lot of family drama going on. 

Book 4 is Tenney vs. Logan Round 2: This Time It's Christmas. 

All their problems get ironed out. The entire cast is honestly likeable, though the little sister gets annoying and Logan makes you grit your teeth constantly. They're decently written books, but they're just not very interesting. I'm not musical. I don't care about the songwriting process or performing or recording or any of that jazz. 

I don't feel that Tenney deserved four books. She's not that fascinating. I was more interested in Jaya and even Holliday. Tenney's books focus solidly on Tenney and put the friend characters almost entirely in the background. I would have liked a book that wasn't centered around music and instead actually added character development to the cast. 

With these books, a good writer combined with good characters and good development can make them work for me, even if the girl's chosen theme is something I'm not interested in. I know practically nothing about ballet, but I loved Isabelle. However, a lot of these more recent offerings have been failing at firmly keeping my interest.