Title: Gods Behaving Badly
Author: Marie Phillips
Genre: Fiction
Gods Behaving Badly is one part urban fantasy, one part Greek mythology, a pinch of Peter Pan, and a bit of an homage to Douglas Adams thrown in. Like Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, it features ancient deities trying to live in the modern world while meddling with the lives of mortals for their own amusement. However, it’s also sort of an anti-American Gods, or at least a happy-bouncy take on the same situation. The tone sort of reminds me of a romance novel, in that one knows ho the story is going to end, and it’s the getting there part that’s interesting. If you like romance novels.
But I digress.
Apollo is a TV psychic, Artemis a dog-walker, and Aphordite a phone-sex operator. They and their siblings/spouses/parents/cousins live in a rundown house in London, and when one of Eros’s arrows makes Apollo fall in love with the house cleaner, Alice, things go about as any student of Greek mythology would expect…almost. A series of petty divine revenge schemes ensues, during which an unlikely minor hero emerges, in the form of the Neil, Alice’s would-be boyfriend. It’s well-written, particularly the interactions between Neil and Alice, which verges on farce without ever quite getting there. Overall, cute, clever, and amusing, and better than average. I’m not sure of there’s something that could have been done differently to make it truly outstanding, or even what that might be, but it’s certainly worth the time.