Olympian Challenger
Author: Astrid Arditi
Series: Olympian Challenger #1
Genre: Mythology, YA, Romance, Fantasy
Pub. Date: February 5th 2018
Page Number: 348 pages
A hero’s tournament. A defiant contender. Does one girl have the courage to take on Mount Olympus?
Hope’s world doesn’t have room for heroes. She barely has time for schoolwork, swim team, and taking care of her ailing mother. But when she’s invited to a mysterious tournament, the all-powerful hosts won’t take no for an answer.
Transported to Mount Olympus, Hope comes face to face with her new trainers—the pantheon of Greek gods. While other contenders train hard to gain a fighting edge, Hope searches for a way out. Instead, she finds a gorgeous shadow god who may just convince her to stay…
As each round unfolds, the ultimate prize draws closer—the granting of her heart’s deepest desire. If she survives the final challenge, her mother’s cure would be within reach…but only if Hope can ignore the tournament’s dark purpose.
Olympian Challenger is the first book in a bold YA urban fantasy trilogy. If you like Greek mythology, forbidden romance, and feats of courage, then you’ll love Astrid Arditi’s heroic coming-of-age tale.
MY REVIEW
I received a free copy for an honest review. You will like this book if you like: - Greek Mythology - Hate-love relationship - "Obstacles" - "Competition I really appreciate the Olympian Challenger's accuracy regarding Greek Mythology, and the adventures are actually really fun, action-packed, and entertaining to read. The romance is also one of the redeeming factors, because this book had a decent enough hate-love relationship (between a god I might add), and it was definitely enjoyable and shippable. However, (I have never say this in a book review before by the way), this book really need to work on the kiss scenes. Which is SUCH a shame because I actually really like the Kerion and Hope's ship. But I found the kiss scene not...just not that good (How do I say this)? It's an instinctive feeling, and it's just that I've definitely seen (a lot) better, so I would really advise the author to improve in this area. However, I myself have a hate-love relationship with Hope and her narrative. I understand that that is who she is, it's her character, but her "saint nature" is just increasingly getting on my nerves as the book progressed. It's only because that she is actually a really capable character that compensated this problem enough for it to not completely drive me away from reading this book. If you get annoyed by characters that are a "saint" because they are just SO kind, selfless, and always saving the characters even when you really just wish that she let those characters die because all they bring is trouble, you will really, really hate Hope. I enjoyed this book as an ARC, and if you're looking for just an okay-enjoyable-pretty good read, this book would be appropriate for you.
My rating:
3.5/10
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Arditi has studied at Hogwarts, ridden a dragon, swam with mermaids and flown to the moon. Recently, she traveled to Mount Olympus…
She leads a double life: one of words and whimsy; the other one chasing her two young kids around the playground and kissing away booboos.
She’s a spy, a princess, a unicorn, a wife, a mother and an author. Life is never dull in her messy home in Brooklyn, or in her dreams where she escapes as often as she can. She writes from experience, of course. You may not believe it, but everything in her books has actually happened to her…even if only in her imagination.
