These classic myths from the Greek pantheon are given a modern twist that contemporary tweens can relate to, from dealing with bullies like Medusa to a first crush on an unlikely boy. Goddess Girls follows four goddesses-in-training – Athena, Persephone, Aphrodite, and Artemis – as they navigate the ins and outs of divine social life at Mount Olympus Academy, where the most priviledged gods and goddesses of the Greek pantheon hone their mythical skills. In book 6, an exchange student from Egypt, Isis, is encroaching on Aphrodite's match-making turf. Will she also edge Aphrodite out of her group of friends?
NY Times bestselling children's book author: GODDESS GIRLS series + HEROES IN TRAINING series (w Suzanne Williams); THIS LITTLE TRAILBLAZER a Girl Power Primer; ZERO THE HERO; I AM THE SHARK. Lucky to be doing what I love!
This was another funny, sweet, and romantic installment of one of my favorite series! In this book, Aphrodite finds out she may not be the only goddess of love when she meets Isis in Egypt. A friendly rivalry results where Aphrodite and Isis compete to be the first to find the perfect love match for Pygmalion.
I love that the girls aren't mean spirited in their competition, even though the mortals are spreading vicious rumors that they are literally fighting. There's a lot to learn about healthy competition, while respecting each other's differences.
Aphrodite, as the goddess of love, gets to play matchmaker a lot in this book. In fact, I would have loved to have seen more of her matchmaking and the results! The couples she chose to put together were just so adorable! It would have been so fun to see more of the love matches sprinkled throughout the book.
I'm glad we got to see some old favorites from "Aphrodite the Beauty", Hephaestus and Ares. It was great to see them back for another story.
As always, with the Goddess Girls series, there's a lot to love about this book, and I would definitely recommend it to all tween girls. While this wasn't the strongest of the series, it was definitely a welcome addition. All of the books are fun with lots of age-appropriate romance, and they also have a great message about friendship, doing the right thing, and girls being strong.
Another can't miss installment of the Goddess Girls series, this time with lots of love matches and some friendly rivalry.
book sent by the authors in exchange for an honest review
anyway, i enjoyed this book a lot. not as much as the first 5 but it was still an enjoyable re-read.
aphrodite isn’t my favorite pov, as i’ve said before, but i still appreciate her and her drama. the plot was fast-paced even though this is one of the longer books and i enjoyed that. also, always love some aphrodite and ares Drama™.
overall, i’m enjoying rereading his series and this one was a fun one :)
Super nice to have more myths come to life, and I loved having Aphrodite up against Isis for the title of "Goddess of Love". It just...makes sense, you know?
Ahem, anyway, this one is definitely the most romantic book of them all in this series so far, and I'm quite loving it! Will definitely be continuing this series moving forward, it's quite enjoyable!
Aphrodite the Diva Aphrodite gets a D in Herology. She vows not to let anyone find out about it because of the stereotype of pretty girls being air-heads (and she’s the prettiest one at her school). It’s Heroe Week (a five-day school break) and there’s a party. There’s a game board set up that consists of a 3D map with villages, roads, and hills. There are also oceans, sea monsters, mermaids, and dragons. There are also statues that the students have sat gifts next to for their heroes. Athena, Artimis, and Dionysus seemed to have done well on their grades. Aphrodite presents Paris with a tiny, gold, shield. It’s a miniture scroll but whatever they give the statues the real heroes get (and they can hear them). She apologixes for making him fall in love with Helen. Her assignment was to sent him on a quest but she accidently helped him start a war. She tries to sneak out, but then Medusa stops her and taunts her about her grade. Then she has to defend herself about starting the war to some of the others. Aphrodite says she only wanted her hero to fall in love, but Medusa says her hero King Menelaus was in love with her first. Her friends speak up for her and say they all make mistakes and besides the Trogan War made the class more interesting.
Medusa continues to press her about her grade and she’s about to lie, but the roof crashes and it starts to stprm. Zeus is angry! During the commotion Aphrodite slips away to talk to Mr. Cyclops. He quickly lets her know she can’t be bought. He tells her the reason for her low grade is because of what happened. She started a war among the morals. He’d asked her to come by his office to discuss her assignments earlier in the year. She tries to plead and reason with him, but he tells her she needs to spend more time on her studies and stop being such a diva. He suggests she be more like Athena (who thought up the Trogan horse). He points out that she’s the reason Zeus is in a bad mood. He’s getting flack from the morals and the tears are getting flack from him. Aphrodite suggests she come up with a way to get the mortals to forget she caused the “incident She says she’ll start a Lonely-Hearts club to help mortals find love. He gives her the green light and says if it’s a success she’ll get raised to B. If not the D stands.
Pheme agrees to help her get the word out. She rushes off to tell some immortal girls even tho it’s not for them. Aphrodite tells her to make sure she goes to Earth and tell them to write her letters so can find the right match for them. Then she’s off. Aphrodite just hopes she gets the details right. Sadly, Aphrodite has to tell Artemis and Athena and Persephane she can’t go on vacation. She tells them about the club but not about the reason behind it. Her friends seem so disappointed that she’s about to change her mind but their interrupted by more thunder. This makes her change her mind right back. There would be other vacations. Back in her room, Aphrodite creates a mailbox (which gets the attention of Pandora who asks her a bunch of questions). Then she’s joined by Medusa.
By the time she gets to her room, she already have five letters. The first three were from God Boys who are crushing on her. The fourth is from a mortal giant who wants to meet a lot of sweet maidens with good taste. (He’s a bear). The fifth is a riddle. It seems to be from an immortal. She has a thought it might be Hephateus but she just set him up with someone. She wonders if they’ve broken up. Then she decides to make up a quiz to make it easier. She decides to check things out on earth and morphs into a love bird. She hears some mortals talking about her starting a lonely DARTS club. One says it’s a BONEY ARTS CLUBS and another says it’s a FOAMY ARTS CLUB. When she gets back, she has another letter. But it’s only half of a letter and she can’t decipher what it says. So, she takes it to Artemis and the rest of her friends to help her figure it out.
He’s either calling Aphrodite a pig or his name is Pig. They decipher he’s looking for love and there are some squiggles on the page that might be a map (hard to tell). A magic wind comes in and tries to take the letter. She says she must take the letter to Egypt because I sis demands it. None of them know who this is. They figure out the C in the letter might stand for Cairo and they may find the boy who wrote the letter and Isis there. This decides where they’ll go on vacation. Athena leaves to go study hieroglyphics in the library. The other girls think she’s more upset about her dad’s moods than she’s saying but agree to let her bring it up. The next morning, she finds two more scrolls from Medusa and Pandora. It won’t be so easy to find matches for these two, but she slips quizzes under their door anyway. Once there, Athena has them each put on translation rings Hephaestus made for them. They decode Arabic languages. While shopping, they come across four gorgeous Egyptian girls. The girl with the green eye’s stares at Aphrodite. They’re told she’s Isis the goddess of love. Her friends jump immediately to her defense. Who does this girl think she is. There’s only one goddess of love. Isis introduces her friends (Hathor, Ma’at, and Baset. Neither have heard of each other. Aphrodite sees the other half of her letter in Isis’s belt and demands it back. They agree to hold both halves of the letter up and Aphrodite will take Isis with her to find the boy.
It says his name is Pygmalion, he’s a sculpture he’s from Cypress, and wants to find love. The other girls say Aphrodite doesn’t have a claim on the letter since her name wasn’t on it and she shouldn’t have started the club because she didn’t have her permission. Since she’s over all things love. Aphrodite notices she looks at Hathor challenging her to go against her. Aphrodite turns down her friends offers to go with her and they go to stay in the dorms while Aphrodite goes with Isis. On the trip, there’s a brief moment when isis and Aphrodite feel a bond because even tho they don’t know anything about the other, everyone worships them where they’re from but it’s over before they know it. Surprisingly when they find him he slams the door in their faces. He thinks their there because they want to model for one of his sculptures and slams the door in their face another time. They have a moment over his nerve. Then they remember their enemies.
They show him the letter. They tell him he’ll have to choose which one he wants to help him. After proving their credibility, he invites them inside Then it becomes a contest with Aphrodite and Isis both trying to win him over bragging on each of the benefits of choosing them (Greek vs Egyptian). He turns it into a contest and says whoever brings him the girl of his dreams wins the title of “Godess of Love”. He gives them two days. He says they can give him three candidates. Then he sends them on their way. When she gets back to MOA, she tells her news to Pheme. She tells her to tell the mortal girls to meet with her to compete for this boys affection. She’ll have to pick a girl that’s into his talent. This time she makes Pheme wear a sign with the details. She runs into Medusa who continues to ask her about her grade. Aphrodite tells her she made a B, but the snakes seem to know better. Adrite confronts her and asks why she doesn’t like her. Medusa says it’s because she’s so happy. She’s always looking on the bright side and seeing love everywhere. Everything comes to her too easy. She quickly lets her know it’s not that easy for her but Medusa stomps off.
In the cafeteria, Aphrodite goes over Medusa and Pandora’s quizzes. There are a lot of question marks on Pandora’s. Medusa’s favorite animal is a reptile. Pandora’s best quality is I’m curious. Medusa marks everything and then adds I’m green. Pandora’s ideal boyfriend has turquoise skin and likes water. Medusa says her ideal boyfriend also has turquoise skin and likes fountains, lakes, and has a trident. They’re both crushing on Poseidon. But he’s sitting with some of the other boys and doesn’t notice the looks they’re giving him of adoration. She sees a sign that says Apollo’s band will be playing at a party to celebrate the end of Hero week and tells Ares she’ll stop by for a while. There’s a huge turnout of girls in Greece the next day. Everyone knows about the challenge now.
When she tries to interview the girls, all they want to talk about is the fight they heard she and Isis had. But one of them says they’re all out in support of her and this makes Aphrodite feel loved. She makes the girls take her quiz and tells them she’ll get back. Then some of the God boys show up and distract the mortal girls. The God boys tell her she’s about to start another war about the Greeks and the Egyptians. She and Ares have a moment when she admits she feels bad about the incident. Meanwhile, the Egyptian Goddess girls take the Greek Goddess girls to see the pyramids. They (the Egyptian girls) tell Persephone they don’t believe in the underworld she speaks of but agree to disagree. Then Artemis and Baset argue about which is smarter cats or dogs. But they also agree to disagree like Persephone and Maia. They notice a sign about the contest that Isis is also interviewing girls and the Egyptian Goodess Girls say they have to go help her. The Greek Goodess girls say they should go help Aphrodite. They give her a note from Aphrodite but it’s too late to get transportation and they accuse the Egyptians of doing it on purpose. Hathor just says all is fair in the contest and leaves with the others. They all agree that they think Aphrodite is holding out on them and hope she’ll tell them when she sees them.
Aphrodite makes her chooses (Tessa, Chloe, and Zoe). Then she arranges a ride for them to Cypress on her swan cart. They all have questions for her about the boy they’re about to meet. When they see him, he’s holding a gift. He turns them down after a five second glance. The girls stomp back to the cart. Aphrodite lays into him for not giving them a chance. He says the first has a weird laugh. The second reminds him of a girl he meet before. The third he didn’t like her disposition. He needs someone sweet. He’s an artist. He says he wasn’t trying to hurt their feelings but he just knew it wasn’t any of them. He’s about to tell her something but then Isis shows up with three girls just as beautiful as she is. She starts to worry but he also turns all Isis candidates down. He says he’ll give them another chance. He’ll give them two more days.
Isis and Aphrodite wonder if the gift was for the girl who won or an appreciation gift for one of them. They agree its weird that he seems to want love (or says he does) but doesn’t want to give any of the girls a chance. After this, Aphrodite’s friends pick her up and they fill each other in (and return back to MOA). When they get back there’s more lightening and they find out from Athena her mom left her dad. She got tired of living in her dad’s head so she flew off to be with her other friends. She’s come back twice but it’s just not the same. Athena asks Aphrodite is maybe she can find someone for her father since they’ve agreed he’s probably lonely and she has a Lonely Hearts. This is NOT something Aphrodite wants to do but she agrees to help her friend. She hands her a quiz and tells her to get her dad to fill it out. She suggests she put it in one of the scrollozines he reads.
She gets a second riddle scroll. She goes to Hephaestus and rules him out as the riddle sender when she sees he can’t think of a rhyming word for sad. She decides to not take girls this time. Only sketches. She’ll also choose girls who appreciate (and not necessarily are) creative. She asks the new candidates to each compose poems and gets a sculptor to sculp their likenesses. When she gets back Athena has the answers to Zeus’s quiz. He loves all animals, he checks all the categories for what do you love about yourself, he answers king of the God and Ruler of the heavens for how would your friends describe you. For what makes you a good catch he writes mortals admire and fear me. For ideal companion he writes sm or mind scorch marks. Someone who doesn’t have compound eyes or sticky feet or give me a headache. Aphrodite says they’re heading to the market place.
They find the lady they’re looking for Hera in a bridesmaid’s shop. They tell her about Zeus when they realize she isn’t buying their story their looking for a gift for him. Then they invite her to chaperone at the Hero Week dance. She gets Cleo to agree to do their makeup. Aphrodite figures if she hits it off with Cyclops it will help his bad mood (and her grade). When Aphrodite returns to Cyrus, she finds Pgy arranging flowers and reciting a love poem. He leads her in and she notices a curtain. She presents the statues and reads the poems (all which make her emotional) but again he turns them all down. He’s about to confess something to her for the second time but they’re interrupted. He goes to answer the door and she sneaks a peak behind the curtain. The statue is of a flawless, beautiful, girl. She also sees a love bird. Is it the model? Isis also has brought sketches. Instead of poem’s she’s brought songs. He turns them all down too. Isis wants to know why and Aphrodite says he already found a crush and pulls back the curtains and reveals. He says her name is Galletea and she’s his super crush. He wrote them hoping he could find someone like her. They both say they’ll talk to her. But they find out she’s .. the statue. Galatea,” Aphrodite tries to turn the statue human but it doesn’t work. She tries another spell and it WORLS! Pyg and Galletea run to each other and share a corny sculpture act. He says he’ll announce Aphrodite as the true Goddess of love, but she says Isis fixed the spell so the title should go to both of them. They’ll share the title. Aphrodite invites her new friend Isis to the dance.
Aphrodite gets another riddle scroll the night of the dance. She intends to set up Medusa with Dionysus her opposite. She tells him to put on the blindfold he wore in the park that says LOVE IS BLIND and leads him to Medusa. She tells Medusa that after two dances he’ll try to guess who she is. Don’t give him a clue. Ares tries to talk to Aphrodite and she confronts him about telling his friends about her grade but he says it wasn’t him. Then she stirs him away to dance with Isis (noticing he looks disappointed). She guides Pandora to Poseidon and tells him to ask about his trident. Cleo and Mr. Cyclops find their way to each other. Three romances down. Zeus and Hera also hit it off and his mood is notically better. Ares performs and when he starts to sing the words of the riddles, Aphrodite figures it out. He kisses her hand and they dance. She gets the B and can’t wait to tell her friends.
My Thoughts I could appreciate what Aphrodite did for the mortals and immortals. Many years ago, when I was struggling with being single it really use to anger me how some people seemed to find love and other deserving people did everything they could and waited and waited and waited and NOTHING! All the prayers and tears and please just feel on deaf ears. One of the things I wanted to do was start a club where single people could come to meet and have a place where they wouldn’t have to feel alone. Even if they didn’t find a match they at least would know they weren’t alone. I thought of some activities. I even thought of an anti-Valentine type day to celebrate. I remember on Google I even attempted to do a scaled down version of this and tried to start a group where singles could talk about and share topics, songs, articles, books, etc. Only since I didn’t tell anyone about it and left it up to just random people joining it really didn’t get a lot of notice. For a book about love and finding people matches I didn’t mind it so much. Everyone got a match who wanted one and that’s the kind of story I can tolerate.
Rating: 6
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
It took a little bit to get into but after that I really liked and if you are used to short chapters this will be a little bit of a change these chapters are around 20 pages.
I really adore this series. The Goddess Girls is a fun series that allows young readers a chance to get to know the young Greek Goddess and Gods, while sharing empowering messages with it's readers. In past books the messages have been about being true to yourself, loyalty, being strong, being a true friend and being proud of who you are. With each book, the characters deal with much of the same things or similar things their readers do. These young Gods and Goddess learn to deal with fitting in, first crushes, new friendships, dealing with bullies, school life and finding out who they are. I love that as the series continues, we not only see more of the characters, but with each new book a different Goddess Girl tells the story.
I adore Aphrodite! Aphrodite is the school's main diva and resident match maker. Aphrodite gains a new rival, who's just a good at match making as she is when Isis from Eygpt arrives. Aphrodite and Isis have a lot of the same qualities and while they're both competing against each other, they don't stoop to the level of being mean towards each other. I really admired that about the two characters. Even with all the rumors that are going around about them, they still maintain a level of respect towards each other which keeps their competition friendly, when it could have quickly become turned into something ugly.
I really enjoyed getting to know Aphrodite. She definitely reminds me of friends I had in school who wanted to match their friends up with boys they thought were cute. Aphrodite does a great job with her matches. She's a fun character to get to know. I'm hoping we'll get to see if her matches are still going strong as the series continues. I love that this series keeps the romantic part of the story very age appropriate. It's refreshing to see how these sweet, innocent crushes can turn into something a little more. This is a series I'd recommend to readers 8 & older. It's clean cut, fun and one that parents don't have to worry about what kind of subject matter their kids are reading. I'm looking forward to having my daughter read this series.
Another cute book in the series. I liked the portrayal of Aphrodite in this book much more than "Aphrodite the Beauty" - she seemed to have more depth of character and her actions served as a much better role model to the target audience this time around. I enjoyed seeing how the Egyptian mythology figures tie into the Greeks and I hope to see more crossovers in the future installments of this series. Also, I am glad to see Hera finally enter the big picture and look forward to how more comes from that story arc. I enjoyed this book.
Goddess Girls series, ages 8-12, Aladdin paperbacks #1 Athena the Brain #2 Persephone the Phony #3 Aphrodite the Beauty #4 Artemis the Brave #5 Athena the Wise (April 2011) #6 Aphrodite the Diva (August 2011) #7 Artemis the Loyal #8 Medusa the Mean
Aphrodite the Diva: Isis claims she's the goddess of love? Ha! But to keep her title, Aphrodite has to find the perfect match for Pygmalion, the most annoying boy ever.
These books continue to surprise me with how cute and enjoyable they are. Still a bit fluffy, but at least the characters are flushed out and have realistic concerns. And, for the most part, they avoid solving those troubles with "hilarious hijinx"-type scenarios and tend to find ways to be more real in order to meet goals for self improvement.
A Greek goddess Aphrodite receives her letter scroll and discovers that she is failing Hero-Ology.After having a long talk with her Hero-ology teacher Mr. Cyclops she is told that the only way he will bring her grade up is if she does community service over spring break and cancel her plans with her friends.She agrees to do the community service by starting a lonely hearts club where she’s gonna help mortals and immortals fall in love.One day Aphrodite receives half of a letter from a immortal somewhere in Egypt and she is determined to help whoever sent the letter.Aphrodite decides to take her friends Artemis, Athena, and Persephone with her to Egypt since they were torn on a place to go to for spring break.When Aphrodite and her friends arrive in Egypt, they meet a Egyptian goddess named Isis who received the other half of the Immortals letter that was also sent to Aphrodite.
What I enjoyed about the book is how the author used greek God and Goddesses as characters and made them teenagers going to Mount Olympus Academy.What I also enjoyed about the book is how the author brings the main characters Aphrodite and Isis together in Egypt with the letter from the Immortal in search of love.
What I disliked about the book is how the author had Aphrodite and isis run around looking for possible girlfriends for the immortal when they end up finding out that the whole competition was for nothing when the Immortal told them he already liked someone. I think the author could have had the Immortal make it more easier on Aphrodite and sis by just telling them he already had a crush from the beginning instead of rejecting all 6 girls Aphrodite and Isis brought to him.
I think the type of person that would enjoy this book is anyone who enjoys books written by Suzanne Williams or anyone who enjoys adventure books.
Aphrodite is much better in this book than in Aphrodite the Beauty. You can see the two writers’ skills improving as this series continues and they get the hang of the characters. In this book, Aphrodite and Isis, the Egyptian goddess of “everything about the heart” are competing to find the perfect match for Pyg, who is Pygmalion. Isis is a great character, and it the inclusion of an Egyptian goddess actually foreshadows a later book in this series. This book was actually how I got introduced to the Pygmalion myth, and it was a good introduction.
Aphrodite might be the goddess girl of love, but some see her as a diva. When she gets a D in one of her classes, Aphrodite sets out on a mission to start what she calls a Lonely Hearts Club (like the Beatles song!). When she gets sent half a letter, she goes searching for the second half and ends up in Egypt where she meets Isis, her Egyptian counterpart.
The love goddesses are then forced to compete in a competition for a guy named Pyg to find him the perfect girl. Little do they realise that he already has the perfect girl, a statue named Galatea.
I loved this one as it blames both Greek and Egyptian mythology together.
Eh, I'm a glutton for punishment and read another one (this one had Isis on the cover!). I was actually a bit more impressed by how they interpreted the myths in this one? It was awfully long though for the concept and had word extraneous details that didn't matter, like everyone being suspicious of Hathor (in case she turned into Sekhmet?).
Read as bedtime story with Girl. A cute series, though I wish there was less focus on kids finding crushes, and more diversity in those crushes. Work in some stuff that's not so hetero-normative, please.
🙄 Seriously this book was so dumb. I couldn’t resist a Aphrodite meets Isis moment, and the Athens meets Egypt in Cyprus is appreciated, but, honestly, it’s so fluffy and cheesy that it took my two weeks to read. The myths and deities were represented well, which is why I’m giving this two stars.
This book was a cliffhanger. It kept me interested because when I thought one thing would happen, it ended up another way. I couldn't guess! I want to read more of the Goddess Girls collection now.
A mashup between Greek and Egyptian mythologies, this edition of the Goddess Girls series had me firmly on the Greek side, firmly on the Egyptian side, back to the Greek side, and finally ending up rooting for both goddesses of love.
It has soooo much love in it(as expected from the goddess of love!). Ares is so cute and kind in this book. It would be so nice if there was someone I knew like him.
I could not stop myself from rolling my eyes at almost every bit of dialogue. The characters are terribly one-dimensional. There are better stories for young kids that feature Greek immortals.