Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone doing this lovely Wednesday? Did you have a good Thanksgiving (or Thursday)? We had a nice one. The neighbor and his family came over as well as the minion and one of his spawn. It was good. Yummy food! But it’s the last Wednesday of the month, so we’re here to ramble about a book. I decided to request a YA fantasy type thing to try something a little different. Godly Heathens by H.E. Edgmon was released yesterday (the 28th) from Wednesday Books. As usual, I must thank them and NetGalley for access to an ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. So, let’s do the thing.

Godly Heathens follows Gem, a trans teen in small town Georgia, as they struggle with mental issues and trying to find their place in the world. Throw in the discovery that they’re the reincarnation of one of the most powerful gods from another world and a downright villain, and life gets pretty complicated. Other reincarnated gods want to make Gem suffer for past transgressions. Meanwhile, Gem just wants to live their current life.

This book has content warnings. I have yet to find a book with content warnings that I actually enjoyed, so I had little hope for it when I saw them. I get what they’re for, but I don’t believe they’re necessary 99% of the time. They either give something major away or they draw unnecessary attention to things that are super minor in the book. It’s annoying. That’s just my opinion. But they also seem to be most prevalent in books that try too hard. And this book definitely tries too hard to be… relevant, I guess. And edgy. So freakin’ edgy. It borders on hilarious at first, then it just becomes sad.

The plot is neat, but far from original. Teenagers as reincarnated gods from another world. It’s fun enough. But it’s super slow and the big bad shows up halfway through, but they turn out to be nothing special in this world. And we’ve got this whole build up to a show down between specific characters only to have a complete rando show up like 5 chapters from the end that they all have to fight together. I feel cheated. It is definitely not a satisfying ending. Granted, there’s supposed to be another book, but at least wrap up the story arc of this book first. But no. We get a bullshit ending that does absolutely nothing.

I had high hopes for the characters here, because I’m all for villain stories and diverse casts, but I was disappointed again. Sure, Gem and the Shade might’ve been villains in their own world, but here, they’re just whiny little bitches. All of the characters are. And none of them grow or change by the end of the book. There’s nothing to root for because they aren’t actually doing anything. Yes, teenagers are generally dicks, but they grow and learn things quickly. They try on personalities like outfits, changing pretty much daily. But not these characters. They’re just asshats. It’s boring.

The writing is meh. Like I said, it tries too hard to be edgy and all that crap. It ends up making the book a slog to read.

Ultimately, Godly Heathens was a huge let down. I probably won’t bother with the next book unless it falls into my lap. It was a waste of time and not in the good way.

Overall, I gave it 2 out of 5 stars. One and a half, really. It got published and some people will like it. But I think there are better books to spend your money on.