The Goddess Testby Aimée Carter

It's always been just Kate and her mom—and her mother is dying. Her last wish? To move back to her childhood home. So Kate's going to start at a new school with no friends, no other family and the fear her mother won't live past the fall.Then she meets Henry. Dark. Tortured. And mesmerizing. He claims to be Hades, god of the Underworld—and if she accepts his bargain, he'll keep her mother alive while Kate tries to pass seven tests.Kate is sure he's crazy—until she sees him bring a girl back from the dead. Now saving her mother seems crazily possible. If she succeeds, she'll become Henry's future bride, and a goddess. (goodreads.com)

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! So if you want to read this book and be (un)surprised, then move along. If you want to read this book, and you'd like to know what it's like, then read on, because it was not one that I enjoyed and I'll tell you why. This is rather ranty, and I apologize, but I just can't not rant, it just spills out.This book has helped me figure out that I need to stay far, far away from any HarlequinTEEN title unless it is written by Maria V Snyder.Heaven help me, I will try to make this review as positive as I can because I did not like this book one bit! I went on quite the tirade in my husband's face about the book and then, because I am an excellent wife, I made him read it so he could understand my suffering. Heh. Mostly I wanted to make sure that the issues I was having with the story were valid. I wanted to see what he thought. He happily read and hated Twilight with me and I told him that though this book was much better written there were so many problems with the plot he needed to know how I felt.My first update on Goodreads was on page 110, I knew by then that there were problems with the story, only rather than marking it as a Did Not Finish, I plugged on because I totally wanted to see where this was going. Sort of like watching a train wreck. I just checked the bookmark in the book now, turns out my husband got to page 112 before he gave up. We are like-minded. It's why we work.My problem with this book is that it was completely unbelievable and there was no connection with any of the characters. It started off innocently enough - Kate and her mother move to the small town of Eden so her mother can die in the town she grew up in. However, her mother is on her last legs and yet she's all "Ok, Kate, now you can go back to school and we'll just hire a nurse." Because... this couldn't happen in say, New York City where they moved from?Kate goes to school, meets this one kid briefly who tells her where the class is and she catches the eye of the mean girl who seems to hate her for no reason all in the space of a morning. Yet later that day? Week? Said mean girl, Ava, decides to make amends and invites Kate to a party. Kate doesn't want to go because her mother is, you know, DYING and yet her mother is all "run along now and party on!"Turns out Kate's just being ditched by Ava in the middle of an estate and when Ava tries to get away she cracks open her skull. Enter Henry and his big, big doggy who is all "Hey, what would you give to have Ava alive again?"And Kate is all "Well, strange person I have never met before, I would give ANYTHING! She means so much to me! Please save her!"And Henry is all "Well, then, how's about you go home and read the myth of Persephone and here, the girl is alive. I'll talk to you again in 2 weeks, the Autumn Equinox, later, young girl!"And so after that near death thingy, Kate and Ava are now BFFs, despite the fact that Ava was ditching her in the middle of nowhere. I'm not so sure about Kate's judgement in people here. And there's that guy, James, that she met day 1 who isn't very talkative and yet still follows her around for some reason.Cut to two weeks later - Henry shows up and tells Kate she now has to come live with him for 6 months and Kate is all "What? No!" Until Ava dies (again) and Kate changes her mind and runs to Henry's house and tells him she'll move in with him if only he could being Ava, her darling BFF back and she feels like it's her fault that Ava is dead (again).Um, NO! Ava dove into a shallow river and cracked her head on a rock, while ditching you in the middle of nowhere and it's HER fault, not yours, Kate. Are you mentally challenged?And why wasn't anyone waving the red flag when some creepy, loner guy from a mega-buck estate is trying to lure teen girls into his home to live with him for SIX MONTHS OF THE YEAR?While in the mansion Kate is pining away for her dead BFF, Ava and how she'll never see James again. Keep in mind that TWO WEEKS have passed since she met these people and one of them didn't even like her for most of that. WTF is wrong with her?While living with Henry Kate discovers that she can still see Ava, because now that she's dead she can hang out in Death's house (Henry) since Henry is the God of the Underworld. (Again, why isn't anyone calling 911 here? This guy is CREEPY!) Kate's mother seems all gung-ho about the situation, even though she's in a coma. Of course. Why wouldn't she? 0_oSo Kate tells Henry - I'll stay here, but I won't love you and I'll never marry you and I won't do that.Oh, yes. THAT. Kate can't even say the word "sex" and I wanted to pull my hair out each time she referred to it as "that". Ugh.Yet, by Christmas, three moths after she's been there and been told someone will likely killer her and oh, hey, you can't leave the house, she's all "I think I Loooooooooove him". And by the end of the 6 months she's ready to marry him? Isn't there a term for this? Stockholm syndrome? Where you think you love your captor?This book felt like any possible plot device that could happen in a paranormal story was just tossed in there one after the other to really, really, get the point across that it was a PARANORMAL STORY. Just in case you didn't get that from the summary, or the shelving in the store or by sort of reading the book for 20 pages or so.  I don't wan to say the book felt Mary-Sue-ish but it does.The  best is the ending where every single person Kate has come across during her time in Eden happens to be one of the 12 gods of Olympus. That was great.Don't forget that even by the end of the book Kate is pining away for her BFFs Ava and James (at least Ava she's been sort of hanging out with until she dumped her - but James hadn't been seen since the first two weeks of SEPTEMBER!!). She asks James to travel to Europe with her for her free summer because that's what best friends do.YOU KNEW HIM FOR TWO WEEKS AND HARDLY SPOKE TO HIM DURING THEM! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU??For some reason the part that really, truly bothered me was when she discovers that her mother is - SURPRISE! - also one of the gods and Kate says to her "What kind of name is Diana for a goddess anyhow?" Seriously? You have a problem with Diana when the Underworld dude's name is HENRY? Diana is at least a goddess name in mythology, though I don't recall ever seeing a Henry as a god. I think I was just so exasperated by this point in the story that that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Your mother dies from terminal cancer, comes back and says "Hey, I'm a goddess, sorry to decieve you and put you through all of this grief and rob you of you high school education and all of that" and all you can think to say is "Diana is a lame name for a goddess."? GAH!Did I mention how Kate is constantly talking about her BFFs that she knew for two weeks and how one of them hated her for most of that?Sadly, I thought this book would be pretty fun. I bought it and then started to see some not-so-great reviews of it. I was worried at that point, but the first two chapters weren't bad and I could get through this and then everything just started happening and it was so wrong and so, so many plot holes.I didn't like the first book the in Iron Fey series either, that one was so bad I couldn't finish it and gave it away as fast as possible. I haven't liked any HarlequinTEEN books since they started putting them out. I think it's safe to say that I can stay away from them now, no matter how tempting they might be. Soooooo not my cup of tea.PS - My husband chimed in with - are these people rich? Why does it seem like they aren't worried about money, moving, terminal cancer and home nurses are not cheap! No one in this story has any common sense? What is wrong with them? And why is that girl all obsessed about a girl who was abandoning her and thinking she was her best friend? It just doesn't make any sense!