Review: Gods Behaving Badly

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips is an bizarrely effective story in which the ancient Greek Gods of Olympus reside in modern day London.  As no one believes in them anymore, they have lost much of their power.  However, the gods continue to control the workings of the world from causing the sun to go up and down (Apollo) to making people fall in love (Eros) to keeping them from having endless sex in all imaginable places (Artemis).  Phillips undoubtedly has a flare for the creative.  Some highlights:  Aphrodite's job is to perform phone sex, Apollo is featured on a cheesy psychic TV show, and Eros is a devout Christian.  

The problem with this book is that it would be impossible to understand without a knowledge of Greek mythology.  I had to stretch my memory (with the help of Wikipedia) all the way back to Mrs. Bell's grade six class in order to get most of the references.  What can I say?  I liked this book, but I'm not really sure why (otherwise this post would probably be longer...).  It went really fast.  The story is good, but I'll probably forget it before too long.  It's the concept itself that drives the book.