Call Me Athena: A Girl from Detroit by Colby Cedar Smith (E-ARC Review)

 

 

Overview

Hi! I got this from Net Galley Read Now a while back and I really enjoyed it. I didn’t fully understand that this novel was in verse until after I started it, but I was enjoying the story, and so I wanted to finish to see where it would go. This was my first time reading a book in this style, and I want to look into it more because I think I would enjoy it. Read on to see my thoughts. There is an author’s note at the end of the book which reveals that this was inspired by the author's family and I loved that. 

Goodreads Info

Title: Call Me Athena: A Girl from Detroit

Author: Colby Cedar Smith

Genre: YA, Historical Fiction

Expected Publication: August 17^th, 2021 by Andrews McMeel Publishing

Rating: 4  stars

Add to Goodreads: here

 

What I enjoyed

Characters

One of my favorite things about this story was the characters. They were well crafted and well developed. The main character is Mary just wants to live her own life and make her own choices for herself, not because she is Greek, and should be a good Greek daughter like her parents want her to be. Mary was my favorite character in this story and it was so much fun reading the story from her point of view. I also really enjoyed Mary’s parents, especially the scenes in the book set in the past, because you got to see how their romance blossomed over the year from the time they met to now. They both grew as people. You can see the growth in the chapters in the past, and I loved that they came back to each other in the end. I enjoyed the minor characters in the story as well, I just wish that we could have spent more time with them to find out more of a backstory for them. I knew from early in the story that the characters would be a star in my review.

Plot

The plot is something that can make or break a book for me, as I’m sure this is the case with most readers. The plot in this book can be seen as simple because it just tells the story about a family in the 1930s Detroit, and the story starts in the past in 1915 and goes through 1918. One of my favorite things about the plot was how simple it was, because it was the story of a family, and that is what I wanted to hear. Letters are woven into the past sections of the story, and it is lovely to see how Mary’s parents, Gio and Jeanne, went from not knowing each other to finding love. Mary’s storyline is great to read as well because you see that she’s just a girl who wants to live her life on her terms and no one else’s. It’s a part of the part and the story that Mary fights for what she wants and I loved that. The headings at the top of the pages make it easy to figure out where you are in the story by having the character’s name, and the year at the top. From early on there was definitely going to be a star in my review for the plot because I really loved how the plot brought both timelines together. 

Writing

Writing is another thing that can make or break a book for me. The writing in this book was beautiful and it matched the story perfectly. With a story this simple, the writing really needs to drive the story, and the poetic writing does. This is a story in verse, but there is no rhyming in the story, and I believe this is what makes the story easier to read. As I said at the start, I had not read a book of this style before, and I loved this style so much.  I loved the writing and how it enhanced and didn’t take away from the story, so I knew that I would need to add a star for the writing in my review.

Enjoyment

I always enjoy adding an enjoyment section to my views because I do very much enjoy the E-ARCs I read. This book was no different because I loved the characters and I loved the story that was going on in this novel. This book has some tense scenes, but there are also some light-hearted moments woven between the serious tones. I add a star for enjoyment to most books because I believe that those should be factored into reviews.

 

What could have been better

 

Pace

The more I read the more I notice that I really need a book to have a steady pace throughout, or I will not really enjoy the story as much as I could. With this novel, sometimes in the past that could have been paced better. There are some sections that are longer than they should be, and there are some sections that could have been longer. The longer sections take you out of the story, and I zoned out as I was reading these sections. Counter to that, the ending sections in the past could have been longer because it seemed like these were rushed in order to finish the story that Smith wanted to tell. The pace of these sections and some of the sections with Mary are why this book was not a five-star read for me.