Audiobook Review: Mortal Gods (Goddess War #2)

Author: Kendare Blake

Narrator: Kate Reading

Audiobook Length: 10 hours 26 minutes

Ares, god of war, is leading the other dying gods into battle. Which is just fine with Athena. Shes ready to wage a war of her own, and shes never liked him anyway. If Athena is lucky, the winning gods will have their immortality restored. If not, at least shell have killed the bloody lot of them, and she and Hermes can die in peace.

Cassandra Weaver is a weapon of fate. The girl who kills gods. But all she wants is for the god she loved and lost to return to life. If she cant have that, then the other gods will burn, starting with his murderer, Aphrodite. The alliance between Cassandra and Athena is fragile. Cassandra suspects Athena lacks the will to truly kill her own family. And Athena fears that Cassandra’s hate will get them all killed. The war takes them across the globe, searching for lost gods, old enemies, and Achilles, the greatest warrior the world has ever seen. As the struggle escalates, Athena and Cassandra must find a way to work together. Because if they cant, fates far worse than death await. 

[Antigoddess (#1) Review]

Mortal Gods in the sequel in the Goddess War trilogy. I cannot believe that it has been a year since I read the first, Antigoddess, so this novel took me a little longer to get back into as I was trying to remember everything that happened. Eventually, I did catch up, but I think I will need to pick up the third soon just to keep this story more continuous in my mind. The beginning of this novel picks up right after the last novel ended and the characters dealing with the aftermath of some losses they experienced. Although it is not fully impossible to understand the story if a reader decides to skip the first, it is highly recommended to read it before moving on to this one.

The characters on continuing on their journey to finding an end to the war between the gods. There are many battles along the way, but this book was definitely a slower pace than the previous. It was not overly slow to the point of boredom, but it was a second novel where there is a build-up to a dynamic conclusion for the next novel. The one good part about the slower pace is that it gives the reader time to digest all of the information for the characters and overall plot. The characters spend a lot of time training and planning before they begin searching for additions to their team. After everyone comes together, then the final confrontation at the end of this novel sets up the next with a cliffhanger ending.

All the characters in this story continued to be very interesting. I love the bits of humor mixed in with the more serious aspect of the characters in the middle of a war as it gave a nice balance to the tone of the story. Most of the characters are present again from the first and there are some new characters that are introduced. The character I had the hardest time with in this novel was Cassandra, as she seemed a little too single-minded after a certain character’s death from the first novel. She was focused almost entirely on revenge that the rest of her character seemed to get lost in the story and I was close to not caring about her part of the story anymore.

Since this is the author’s interpretation of mythology, some characteristics do not align with the familiar versions. This is especially true with Athena as she has growing feelings for Odysseus and can sometime be a little more obsessed with him than one would expect. These feelings affect some decisions that she makes along the way, which, again, does not fully align with tales, but they do work in the context of the story. Odysseus is an excellent character, as I love him with Athena. They are very cute together no matter if they are romantically together or not.  A love triangle, my least favorite trope, develops between some of the characters. Luckily, it was not in the forefront the entire time, so it was not something that bothered me and I am curious how it will turn out.

Overall, there are a lot of questions to be answered in the next novel. Although I was not Cassandra’s biggest fan in this novel, I liked her in the first and hope that her character becomes enjoyable again. There are some romance subplots that I am not sure how they will turn out and, of course, the main war will be an interesting storyline to see how the author brings everything together in the end. I loved the narrator for this audiobook as she did a good range of accents for the characters and it was easy to tell them apart. I also think the narration gave another layer of enjoyment and it is difficult to tell if I would have like the book the same if I read it. I will definitely continue with audio for the last novel in the series!