Pandora Gets Jealous

I promise we’ll get back to Percy Jackson soon, but while we wait, here’s the first book in the Pandora series by Carolyn Hennesy.  I couldn’t get my hands on the whole series, so this may be the only one I review.

The Prologue lays out some context, but it becomes clear to anyone familiar with myths that Hennesy is giving an unusual retelling.  Prometheus is punished for stealing fire for mortals, but after years of having an eagle eat his liver, Zeus relents and frees Prometheus. Prometheus is given the box filled with plagues.  He marries, he has a daughter (Pandora) and that is where our story begins.

Pandora (as expected) is linked to the opening of a box that contains the evils of the world.  But in this version, that’s not where the story ends.  Pandora is commissioned with locating each evil (starting with jealous – hence the title) and putting it back in the box.

Made to catch the attention of the tween and teen girl set, Hennesy tries to keep the book modern and mix in faux ancient Greek touches, like calling grades alpha or delta instead of A or D, or having magic conch shell phones instead of cell phones.  It’s something I think a lot of girls would find cute.

The vocabulary is fairly difficult and seemingly at odds with the lighter, ditsier tone of the book.  Examples of harder words include:  insolent, disrespectful, benevolence, carom, cogitating, contemptuous, inept, uncouth, repugnant.

Plus: I like the strong father daughter relationship and it can be typical of teen girls.

Minus: I was not into the shallowness.  Pandora wears a girdle on her toga but wishes for a larger one to make her waist look slimmer.  She worries about pimples like most teenagers, but her mother comments on her skin as well as recommending she iron her hair and maybe lose weight. She wins a makeover for selling the most GoddessGuide cookies but her mother tries all the beauty products on herself.

Odd choice: Pandora has to capture jealousy and needs to find it in its true form.  When she does find it, it is the jealousy a childless woman feels towards those with children.  While this is definitely something that women who’ve been through infertility and suffered with unwanted childlessness can associate with, I’m not sure it’s the best way to get teenagers to understand jealous.  It seemed like an oddly mature choice.

Sex, Nudity, Dating – Pandora definitely likes Tiresias the Younger.  She lets her toga slip off her shoulder to attract his attention.  Reference is made to Oedipus and that you should not marry your mother.  Zeus is lured away by the promise of watching pretty young things skinny-dip. A kiss on the cheek.   Really weird and seemingly unnecessary digression about how high priestesses must be chaste and it doesn’t hurt if they’re barren as well.  But this one woman who was a high priestess met a man, and wanted more, so she retired and you know, got married and had a kid.  But she can be a high priestess again because Apollo restored her virginity.  I honestly can’t even believe I’m typing this.  It’s like those people who believe you can be a born again virgin if you just don’t have sex.  I’m not really sure I support the message or see its place in a book for young girls.
Profanity – “gods”, “simp” which is short for simpleton and seems like Hennesy’s way of saying retard without having to say it, “idiot,”
Death, Violence and Gore – We’re told the story of Prometheus’s liver being repeatedly eaten by an eagle.  The life of a small child is endangered; an angry woman threatens to sacrifice him by holding him over a burning pit.   There’s a threat of tearing eyes from sockets.  A girl is felled by a harpy’s tail.  The girls are in danger of being sacrificed.  The girls become attached to sacrificial animals.
Drugs, Alcohol and Smoking – Prometheus would only tell the story of the box after a few glasses of wine. Pandora’s mother has a headache in the morning from too much wine the night before.  Gods and goddesses drink wine. Pandora’s friend tries to order wine more than once.
Frightening or Intense Things – Not frightening or intense, but at least one of the girls’ families owns slaves (again I wasn’t sure I saw the point of including this).  There is a two headed calf.  Some people are turned into animals or ashes, but it’s done in a humorous and not scary way.  A person has two heads, another two left feet.  A trip to Hades reveals some grossness, a wall of skulls stuck together by bone marrow, curtains made from the teeth of murderers. I guess it’s supposed to be over the top but it is a bit icky.  Callisto has seizures.