Reviews

The Six Olympians by Maria Alarcon

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ambert's review

adventurous lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.5

This book is frustrating in many ways. The concept is really interesting: Humans who discover that they are gods and must defeat the titans to gain their rightful place. The execution is sloppy, with grammar mistakes, little to no descriptions of the characters or surroundings. I didn't realize they were orphans until chapter 8. Didn't realize they were in London until chapter 9.

Spoiler

There is also a weird phenomenon where the characters seem to have knowledge of mythological beasts and figures but have no clue about the gods. They know about chimeras, hydras, Circe, etc. but they don't know which gods are children of Kronos? They didn't know that Aphrodite was created from Uranus?

The names of the characters are also frustrating. Every character has a name (first or last) beginning with an H. Every. Single. One. Hailey, Hallie, Harry, Hail, Huxley, Hayes, Henley.
The book changes perspectives every chapter, but maintains 1st person POV, making it difficult to remember who is narrating. if the book didn't have the character narrating the chapter at the top of the page, I would lose track.
I really wanted to like this book. I saw it in a TikTok and it sounded so interesting. the cover art is beautiful and looks professional. The concept, while not groundbreaking, sounded interesting and fun.
I think there could be something here, but it needs some edits and rewrites. Increased descriptions on people and places, improved dialogue that doesn't use 'say' and 'said' as much, and a more developed story and characters.

chloeajohnsen's review

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challenging dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

the premise of the story is fantastic but the writing felt less like a published novel and more like a fanfiction of itself. the characters often act in ways that don’t align with who they seem to be, both in mythology and the story, and are instead dragged kicking and screaming behind the plot. there is not much of an internal monologue within any of them. they have thoughts but it’s mostly reactive and any development a character needs to work through is done aloud in conversation. the characters’ powers are also strange: zach (zeus) seems to have every power under the sun while peter (poseidon) can only control water. finally, and my main gripe with the writing, the author never leaves a mystery unsolved. every time, mere moments after they discover a secret or a problem, they are solving it. none of it ever feels prepared or planned. even their identities–which the summary suggests should be the main mystery of the novel–are known to them throughout their entire lives and they just convince themselves otherwise. overall, while i enjoyed the story, it took me two hours to read the entire thing and it didn’t live up to the hype