Title: Aphrodite the Beauty (Goddess Girls 3)

Authors: Joan Holub & Suzanne Williams

Date: 2010

Tags: Middle School, Chapter Book, Novel, Mythology, Athena, Zeus, Aphrodite, Ares, Hephaestus, Ancient Worlds, Female Lead, English

This is the third book in the Goddess Girls series and my first reaction to the book is that it's super girly-girl oriented. I think that it’s such a cute little book that teaches the lesson of friendship yet again but in a different way. This book takes you through Aphrodite's life as “the beauty” of the school. At one point she gets so tired of all of the attention that she gets from the godboys at school that she ends up giving Athena a makeover. The aftermath, however, is something that she did not prepare herself for. Athena was the center of attention after her makeover and Aphrodite started feeling a little jealous about this but she was also struggling with the fact that she was jealous over her own friend which she didn’t like at all. Throughout the book she struggles with this constant internal conflict but at the end she ends up reaching a conclusion and her love for her friend leads the way for her. This is another lesson that I think pertains to middle schoolers quite a bit, which yet again makes this book and overall series that much more relatable. This book is definitely one for the girls because of just how glam-centric it is. That being said, I don’t think that boys should shy away from reading this book if they are dedicated to reading the entire series. 

Even though I didn't personally connect with this story all that much I would definitely still recommend this book to my girly girls in the audience to read, enjoy and connect with. The lessons taught in this book are very valuable. – Vidya Devarajulu