A review by chloeajohnsen
The Six Olympians by Maria Alarcon

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