Review- Aphrodite: Goddess of Love (Olympians #6) by George O'Connor

Title: Aphrodite: Goddess of Love

Series: Olympians #6

Previous books in this series: Zeus: King of the Gods (#1) | Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess (#2) | Hera: The Goddess and her Glory (#3) | Hades: Lord of the Dead (#4) | Poseidon: Earth Shaker (#5)

Author: George O'Connor

Genre: Middle Grade, graphic novel, fantasy, Greek mythology

Publication date: December 2013

Published by: First Second

Source: Purchased paperback

Add it on Goodreads

Buy it: Amazon | B&N | Thrift Books

Synopsis: Behold the wondrous beauty of Aphrodite, goddess of love and embodiment of the intangible Eros. A creature born of pure force and destined for power and fame, so lovely that the Earth and all its inhabitants bend to please her.

Pitted against Athena, warrior goddess, and Hera, goddess of the heavens, the lovely, cunning Aphrodite must find a way to outwit her opponents in a high-stakes beauty contest, the outcome of which will affect the destiny of mortals and gods alike. Will she do what she must to succeed? After all, all's fair in love, war, and vanity...

My rating: ★★★★☆

Did I purposely schedule this post about the goddess of love to be published on Valentine’s Day? Absolutely I did 😆

Anyway, in this next volume of the Olympians series, we focus on Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. This goddess has a couple of different birth stories—there sometimes tend to be different versions of the same myth in Greek mythology. Aphrodite, for example, is sometimes said to be the daughter of Zeus and the titan goddess Dione, and other times she is said to have been born from sea foam, hence the famous Venus painting:

The latter version is the one this volume went with—the one where after Kronos castrated his father Ouranos 🫠 the, uh, bits fell into the ocean and Aphrodite was born from that. Yeah, so, if you’re new to Greek mythology, it’s VERY messed up 😅

Aside from her messed up birth lol, this volume also goes into how Zeus married her off to Hephaistos to prevent any fighting over the goddess, basically 🙄 It also goes into the myth of Galatea and the creep Pygmalion. I had just read Madeline Miller’s Galatea not too long before I picked this up, so the myth was still pretty fresh in my mind. But basically, this creeper made a statue in the image of the goddess, and then the weirdo fell in love with the statue and prayed to Aphrodite to bring the statue to life. She did, and thus Galatea was born. I highly recommend the novella by Madeline Miller if you want a little more in-depth retelling of the myth! But be warned, while this Olympians series skews more MG/YA, Madeline Miller’s books are fully adult reads, including Galatea. But Pygmalion was awful! I felt so bad for Galatea!

But back to the graphic novel at hand 😅 We also go a bit into how the whole Trojan War got started, because Aphrodite was a big part of it! It was insane! But I love the drama of these myths 😆

And I overall really enjoyed this volume! Aphrodite is actually one of my least favorite gods/goddesses in the Greek pantheon because she always seems so vain and messes with people’s emotions. However, the author almost painted her in a new sort of light, at least for me. Especially toward the end...

“I believe marriage is a celebration of two souls united in love and not a political union of convenience.”
-Aphrodite

There were just some things she said that made me dislike her less. It was very interesting! I liked this!

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think about it? If not, what do you think? Does it sound like something you might want to read? Leave me a link to your review or comment below! 😊