Athena’s Choice: A Book Review (It’s More of a Rant)

I read this book a few months ago, back in 2019. Here’s my review for it!

Blurb (taken from Goodreads)

Athena Vosh lives just like any other teenager from the year 2099. She watches reality shows with her friends, eats well, and occasionally wonders to herself: what would life be like if men were still alive?

It has been almost 50 years since an experimental virus accidentally killed all the men on earth. However, a controversial project is currently underway to bring men back. There's just one catch. The project has been sabotaged.

So begins the award-winning novel, Athena's Choice. When the police of 2099 are tasked with finding the saboteur, they receive a mysterious command to investigate the otherwise innocuous Athena Vosh. After it becomes clear that the young girl might know more than she lets on, Athena is brought in to participate in the official investigation. Simultaneously, the girl begins to experience a series of cryptic dreams featuring a ruined library and an old book containing the saboteur’s true identity. As the police close in on their prize, Athena finds herself on a journey of her own. Her clue-filled dreams and incorruptible spirit bring her face-to-face with a pair of forgotten truths about happiness and gender. The world waits to see if men will return as Athena fights a separate battle, culminating in the choice that will define her and others' lives forever. 

My Review

This is one of those books I feel like I have to review.

It had so much promise. However, it lacked the amazing writing other reviews have said it has and made me laugh at its utter ridiculousness while frustrating me at the same time.

So I’m just going to vent for a little and hopefully help you to decide whether you want to read it or not.

I’m going to assume you read the blurb at the beginning of this book’s page. If not, go read that and then come back.

Anyway, I’m going to start with my bad takeaways from the book and then go to the aspects I enjoyed. 

It is my opinion that this book needs an editor. A good one. I reported multiple spelling errors to Amazon from my Kindle copy of the book. Also, there was an over-(and mis-) use of certain words and phrases, namely the word “declared” and calling Athena “the gray-eyed girl” when Boostrom didn’t feel like calling his MC her actual name or pronouns. It makes the writing sound more juvenile when writers do that. I’m fairly sure this is a debut book, so excuses can be made. Just to me, it sounds off.

That in itself is a minor annoyance compared to the hugely annoying use of the word “declared”. Literally every time someone said something, they declared it. Oftentimes, I didn’t think the word was warranted because the people were having a normal conversation.


Then there were the misused words that made the sentences sound ridiculous. I had the advantage of having a dictionary on my Kindle, so if there were words I thought were being wrongly used I could look them up and double check. Also, the wording of some sentences was really weird and made no sense whatsoever. In no particular order:

1. Her face appeared flush with anger.
FLUSHED. 

2. A cottony-taste lingered uncomfortably in her arid mouth.
Wrong use of arid. Also, why the hyphen?

3. Her blond hair was tied back in a bun on top of her head.
Ever wondered what’s with “blond” and “blonde”? Blond is masculine. Blonde is feminine, and although it’s more of a British English thing than a U.S. construct, I still observe it when I write female characters with the hair color. It’s a small, nearly inconsequential thing, but it was enough to make the list.

4. “Wha? What? I’m up. I’m up. What?” Athena mumbled horizontally from her bed.
Reading it, this one made me laugh a little and then make a comment to my mother about it. Mumbling horizontally is impossible! You can’t mumble up down, right, or left either!

5. ...close to the “pi” dorm (a ten-story building constructed in the shape of the Greek symbol for circular perfection)...
Makes no sense whatsoever. 

6. She thanked repeatedly them for coming.
REWORD! Please! 

These are the main weird sentences that stood out to me enough to make a Kindle note about them. There were more. Trust me. 

Another thing that really bugged me is that for the first two-thirds of the book, there’s a lot of random hyphens. Cottony-taste, night-shirt, bee-lining, cream-cheese, full-write-up. Ack. I’m just someone who is into spelling things correctly, making sure prose sounds good, and using commas/hyphens/ whatever in their proper way. However, I am not a grammar expert. I don’t know all the rules and probably use some bad grammar myself. 

On a less grammarly note, the characters seemed very flat, and had no character development whatsoever. The plot/pacing was a little iffy as well.

WHY DO MCS HAVE TO BE PRETTY? It seems like that’s a common trope in a lot of YA books, and it is also present here. I want MCs that aren’t described as being beautiful. Give me people who look how they look. Like they’re human, unless it serves a purpose for the book. 

Okay. Things I thought went well: Hearing the different views about men and the question about bringing them back. Personally, I would be on the no-men side. Another thing was reading some of the extra bits, like ads and bits of writing from when the characters were children. I find it very enjoyable when writers use different formats and fonts.

The worldbuilding was pretty well-developed. The Aasha units, which are basically superpowered Alexas, reminded me of the Thunderhead from the book Scythe. I had fun seeing how Boostrom thought technology would advance.

TL;DR: A lot of spelling/wording errors, weak characters/plot, but interesting world and premise.

All in all, I’m giving this book 3 stars. It had a lot to offer, it just wasn’t executed properly.

I fell in love with the gorgeous cover, great blurb, and good reviews, none of which it deserves. An amazing waste of $6.00. Yes, this is a book I bought. I don’t usually do that. Mistake-o big-o.