Book Review: Goddess Legacy by M.W. Muse

ASIN: B00B9DN2ZM
Published: January 31st, 2013
Publisher: Penning Princess Publishing
Read from August 4th to 7th, 2013
Synopsis from Goodreads:

Legacy Kore is an average seventeen year old with your basic insane crush on the hottest guy in school... rather Adin Shepard was the hottest guy in school before he graduated a couple of weeks ago. Now it’s summer vacation and she’s not sure when she’ll get to see him again. Until he shows up at her surprise seventeenth birthday party. Cue saliva glands--it’s time to drool.
But her giddiness is cut short when her guardian delivers an emotional blow, telling Legacy her mother hadn’t died when she was baby, but that she’d left for Legacy’s protection all those years ago. After the initial shock, she expects some story about how her mother was in the Witness Protection Program or something else just as crazy, but when she’s told that her mother is a Greek Goddess and that Legacy is changing into one too, she thinks her guardian needs a trip to a mental hospital. Legacy a goddess? Um, yeah. Right. And her BFF is the Easter Bunny.
While trying to make sense out of something that was impossible to believe, Adin asks Legacy out on a date. She is thrilled that her fantasy might become a reality, but when she meets the new guy in town, River, she discovers everything isn’t always as it seems, and the legacy she wants just might not be the legacy she is destined to have.

Review:

I'm going to preface the rest of this review by saying that I didn't finish this book. I made it to the 56 percent mark before completely giving up on it. It was a hard decision as I hate giving up on books, but I had been struggling through the entire thing. The problem is that even if I have a large problem with a book, I can typically make it through it. However, I had multiple major problems with this book, and they all piled on top of each other and became too much.

Let's start with what's the most obvious when you start reading. This book was horribly edited. Every few pages or so the wrong pronoun would be used, and it was extremely ridiculous how many times that happened. Once or twice for book, I can let that slide, but I can't tell you how many times characters accidentally talked about themselves in third person. There were other editing mistakes as well, but those were the biggest ones that I really feel should have been caught before this book was published.

So much of the book also seemed extremely unrealistic. Legacy's reaction to being a Greek goddess wasn't believable, which is odd considering she doesn't believe it at first as I'm sure most wouldn't, but the way it's played out isn't believable. None of the characters are really all that believable. They don't act like real people, especially teenagers.

My biggest problem, however, as far as characters were concerned was Legacy and Aiden's relationship. Now, I didn't finish the book, so I'm not sure how it develops, but there were multiple times were I just had to stop and go, "No. I don't like this." I don't know if I'd go so far as to call their relationship unhealthy, but it definitely had signs that it could head that way as far as I was concerned. (Which is why I was unsurprised to figure out that the author has an adult book that has been criticized for portraying an unhealthy relationship.) There's one point in the book were Aiden becomes visibly annoyed when Legacy gets out of the car without letting Aiden open the door for her and help her out. Now, there's nothing wrong with wanting to "be a gentleman" and help a girl out of a car, but getting annoyed when she gets out herself, especially when she doesn't know you're planning to help her out? That's a little ridiculous. And Aiden did things like that consistently that bothered me.

It was obvious that the author was going to love triangle route though, and River seemed like a much better guy as far as I was concerned. Who knows how that would have turned out had I kept reading the series. I really didn't care for the characters enough to care though. Maybe she would have stayed with Aiden and their relationship would get better. Maybe she'd go with River and they'd have a good relationship. I don't know, but I didn't like the beginning enough to stick around to see if I'd be satisfied with the end.

I honestly think this is the most negative review I've ever written, but this was one of my least favorite books I've ever read. The only positive thing I can see is that it had an interesting premise. I love Greek mythology, and that's what drew me to this book. However, there are a ton of books based on Greek mythology, and I've read much better. I really wish this book had met it's potential. I think if it had been edited better and gone through a lot of revision, it really did have the potential to be so much better than it was.