Oh. My. Gods.

There is so much to love about Tera Lynn Childs' Oh. My. Gods. from the cover design, to the fun topic, to the unexpected, to the inclusion of cross country. Phoebe Castro's life is going great. She is crossing the finish line that will clench her a full ride cross country scholarship to USC in the fall as long as she can keep a B average her senior year; however, her mom shocks her by saying that she is going to marry a man from Greece who she barely met and they will be moving to a Greek Island for her senior year. Once she arrives, they tell her that everyone on the Island, including her step-dad, are descendents of the gods. She realizes first hand how teenagers with supernatural powers can be an inconvenience to say the least and will keep her on her toes. Luckily, she is able to continue her passion for long distance running, even though complications make her train harder than ever. (In high school I ran cross country, so I really enjoyed that aspect of the book.) Through it all there is also romance.

During book clubs a group of my students were reading The Lightning Thief. I mentioned how one of my students loved the book but also wished that Percy would have had a crush or a little romance. Right around that time I started regularly reading the Books, Boys, Buzz blog that I found out about via Simone Elkeles' site. When I saw Oh. My. Gods. I knew it would be a perfect fit for my student since it had both mentions of Greek Mythology and more importantly for my student, romance.

Once the book arrived my student could not wait to read it and asked to check it out before I had even put it on the shelves. She flew through it and really enjoyed it. I told her about Goddess Boot Camp coming out this summer. While I will be getting it for the classroom library, she said that she will probably buy it in June when it is released because she doesn't want to have to wait until August when school is back in session. I am really excited to add this to my classroom library after spring break. I can already think of a few other girls who will really enjoy this book as well.

This will be coming out in paperback on May 14th, and it has a really cute cover as well. I can't decide which one I like more. One creative aspect to the hardcover, that I am not sure if the paperback includes, is quotes raving about the book from different gods and goddesses.