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23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sitcom of the Gods, December 16, 2007
I just read that Ben Stiller's production company has optioned "Gods" for development as a TV series; I hope this hysterically funny yet sweet-tempered farce is not destroyed by a sitcom mentality.
In "Gods Behaving Badly," the gods of Olympus have been holed up in a decrepit London flat for almost 400 years of decay. Forced to make a living, Aphrodite turns to phone sex, Artemis walks dogs on Hampstead Heath, Dionysus runs a sleazy bar, and Apollo has a lame fortune-telling show on cable TV. Eros (Cupid) shoots Apollo with love's arrow, and his lusty gaze falls on poor timid Alice, a cleaning lady attending the show with Neil, a structural engineer who secretly loves her. In pursuit of Alice, Apollo comes close to destroying the world, and nerdish Neil must descend into the Underworld to rescue Alice (and the world) from death.
This *does* I admit sound like a sitcom premise; what rescues "Gods Behaving Badly" is the author's witty dialogue and almost romantic sympathy for her characters - even the naughty ones. Apollo's pursuit of little Alice has a kind of Marx-Brothers manic frenzy to it, and for bawdy comedy the book rivals Christopher Moore (one of my favorite authors), but with a more coherent plot, believe it or not. Read it before television gets hold of it!
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30 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Gods behaving sadly, October 12, 2007
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
This book's back cover blurb includes a review calling it 'hilarious.' I must have a different sense of humor than that reviewer, because I found little about the book that was amusing. The book was well-written, had swiftly but well-drawn charcters and a promising and clever premise of ancient gods living a modern life. Nonetheless, the overwhelming feeling evoked by the book was one of sadness.
The Olympian gods are living degraded existences in which all of life's moments, even sex, are desultory and boring. Their lives are boring and boring, therefore, to read. The two main human characters are both stunted emotionally and while their small lives are somewhat poignant, they do not inspire humor or in fact, anything more than pity. Nonetheless, the humans find heroism in themselves and manage to restore themselves and the gods to their rightful place through selflessness and courage.
This book is a good moral tale if one enjoys sad and dark stories. But hilarious? No.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting & amusing premise, but comes up short, October 16, 2007
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
This book certainly got off to a promising start, enough so that I kept moving along through some of the more tedious Neil-and-Alice moments. Marie Phillips writes well enough so that most people should be able to make their way through this novel in no more than two days.
It does have some laugh-out-loud moments, and some pretty good dialogue, but the author seems to have used up her best material before the first half of the book is completed. By the time the nebbishy Neil begins his (for lack of a better term) heroic quest, I felt myself trudging along obligingly, despite suspecting that an obvious conclusion was waiting for me. Sadly, there were no surprises in store.
It doesn't help that the author, while obviously having done good background research, only seems really interested in the character of Artemis. With the possible exception of Eros, all of the other gods & mortals seem to be filler for the most part. Alice & Neil are extremely mundane, and while this certainly makes sense in the larger context of the plotline, it doesn't necessarily make for engaging characters.
It wasn't a disappointment, and it certainly had some rather amusing moments --- but ultimately, I would have to file this one in the "could have been so much better" category.
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