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    Gods Behaving Badly: A Novel
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    Gods Behaving Badly: A Novel
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    Gods Behaving Badly: A Novel
    Audiobook (abridged)6 hours

    Gods Behaving Badly: A Novel

    Written by Marie Phillips

    Narrated by Tom Sellwood

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Being a Greek god is not all it once was. Yes, the twelve gods of Olympus are alive and well in the twenty-first century, but they are crammed together in a London townhouse-and none too happy about it. And they've had to get day jobs: Artemis as a dog-walker, Apollo as a TV psychic, Aphrodite as a phone sex operator, Dionysus as a DJ.

    Even more disturbingly, their powers are waning, and even turning mortals into trees--a favorite pastime of Apollo's--is sapping their vital reserves of strength.

    Soon, what begins as a minor squabble between Aphrodite and Apollo escalates into an epic battle of wills. Two perplexed humans, Alice and Neil, who are caught in the crossfire, must fear not only for their own lives, but for the survival of humankind. Nothing less than a true act of heroism is needed-but can these two decidedly ordinary people replicate the feats of the mythical heroes and save the world?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateDec 10, 2007
    ISBN9781600240737
    Unavailable
    Gods Behaving Badly: A Novel
    Author

    Marie Phillips

    Marie Phillips is the author of three novels, including the international bestseller Gods Behaving Badly, and is the co-writer of the acclaimed BBC Radio 4 series Warhorses of Letters. She has already had two midlife crises and there is still time for more.

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    Reviews for Gods Behaving Badly

    3.5/5

    1,011 ratings109 reviews

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    • 2/5
      I had a really difficult time getting in to this one. I can't say that I really liked any of the characters, they were all pretty annoying. Especially all the Gods and Goddesses. I thought it would be funnier and it really just dragged on quite a bit. Finally around 60% it started to get better and I actually wanted to continue reading. I think the ending was very creative and it's probably the best part about the whole book.
    • 3/5
      This was a light and easy read that towards the middle actually kept me interested enough to stay up late a few nights reading.

      The Gods & Goddesses of Olympus have become despondent and are leading their lives out of a shabby rundown house in London... I a gesture of revenge Aphrodite urges Eros to make Apollo fall in love w/ a mortal, but not any mortal; one who will not love him back.... Which Eros does and Apollo does....

      Alice is a "cleaner" for a Television station, she is in love w/ Neil, Neil is in love with Alice, but both are too shy & awkward to do anything about moving past their friendship.....

      Alice gets fired from her job and goes to work cleaning house for Artemis... where she encounters Apollo, who has fallen in love w/ Alice......

      Then things happen and become more interesting.......... However, I found the ending to be anti-climatic.
    • 3/5
      This is a fun romp with momentary jewels, but nothing with a lot of carats. And nerds in love just aren't all that charming, nor is Alice's unrelenting niceness anything other than annoying artifice.
    • 1/5
      I did not enjoy this book at all. The author could and should have taken a different direction entirely. All the Greek gods from classic mythology stories shoved into one apartment for all eternity makes for something worse then afternoon soap operas. Too many holes, and little over looked details exist to get absorbed in the story. For anyone that is a true mythology fan do not pick up this book it will only frustrate you. An elementary class on Greek mythology would have given more details on the gods then this book and been more interesting. This book had such potential and yet was such a pathetic flop with its poorly pieced together plot and characters.
    • 2/5
      I read this as part of the Atlantic Monthly's Twitter book club. As I have never been too interested in the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, I was looking forward reading this book and understanding them through a different angle. The beginning was very humorous and I applaud the author's idea for the modern day setting juxtaposed with the classical legends, however, as the book progressed, I found myself laughing less and becoming bored with the book. While the premise of the book was very interesting, I found the plot to stagnate and eventually fizzle out.
    • 3/5
      The Greek pantheon, fading away for lack of belief, is living en masse and in squalor in a suburb of London. Aphrodite is working a phone sex line. Of course she is. Clever; not as original as it seems to think it is.
    • 4/5
      Charming book with an interesting premise - the ancient Greek Gods are living in present day London and up to no good. Knowing Greek mythology might make this fanciful book even more fun, but isn't necessary. A quick read to help kick off a lovely 4th of July holiday weekend.
    • 5/5
      There was a time when most adolescent girls went through a "mythology" phase. Similar to the "dinosaur" phase many little boys experience. I remember being a pre-teen first discovering the racy, gory tales of those naughty Olympians between the pages of Bulfinch and Edith Hamilton's comprehensive mythology texts. Even in the heady days of Sidney Sheldon, Harold Robbins and Dynasty, Zeus and his cohorts, with their rape, incest and murder, were pretty hard to top for shock value.Marie Phillips takes the twelve top Greek gods (Zeus, Apollo, Aphrodite, Artemis, et al) off Mount Olympus and transfers them to a squalid townhouse in modern day London with completely winning results. Frankly, I'm really surprised it took so long for someone to write something like this, but after reading Gods Behaving Badly, I'm glad an inferior writer didn't beat Phillips to the punch. Everything about the characters and the storyline is pitch perfect.If Bulfinch and Hamilton were still out there, continuing to chronicle the lives of the Greek deities, they would surely have to include this epic adventure. It has all the elements of one of the classic tales - sex, jealousy, backstabbing, revenge and murder - with two hapless "mortals" thrown in to teach a lesson in humility, courage, virtue and, of course, true love.It helps if you know your mythology (or else you might be in for a shock at what a bunch of rotters these folks are), but I think anyone with a good sense of humor and romance will enjoy this one.
    • 3/5
      Fun take on the old Gods in modern times. Lit Bubble Gum and laugh out loud in places. Nice easy one for a holiday read.
    • 2/5
      Although this book is sort of educational, I didn't like the atmosphere much. I liked none of the characters.
    • 1/5
      To be fair, this was bought for me, I would never have picked it off the shelf myself. Whilst some of the best books I have ever read have been the sort I wouldn't necessarily have chosen, this does not fall into that category. Aside from the first chapter (which I admit was excellent) I hated this with a passion. It read like a story for the 8-12 age group with a bolt-on backdrop of cringemaking and rather turgid sex, presumably to make it suitable for today's adult mass-market. I thought it was just dreadful. It is amazing to think that in a world packed with literature, nobody has thought of this idea before. It conjiured up images of the author, possessed of the glimmer of an idea - and the title - having to rush headlong to get it written before someone else thought of the idea and got there first. I thought she was a perfectly competent writer, but she can't do satire and I think it would have been a better story written by someone who could.
    • 3/5
      Fluffy and hilarious, Gods Behaving Badly tells the story of the Olympian gods stuck in a house in London, where they remember the glory days and sulk. Then Cupid shoots Apollo, and he falls in love with Alice, a shy cleaning woman in love with a man named Neil. Shenanigans ensue, including a visit to the underworld. Don't expect anything deep, but it was a perfect beach read.
    • 4/5
      Funny, literate, just generally-well done. So, the premise is that the Greek Gods are still around, but slowly losing power because no one believes in them. (I feel rewarded for reading all that Edith Hamilton, because I could remember who everyone was.) I could see this as a movie, sort of Homer meets Bridget Jones, but that's a good thing.
    • 1/5
      I actually can't bear to go over it again.
    • 1/5
      Cliched, tired, formulaic plotting make this far more interesting in concept than in execution.
    • 4/5
      A really funny little book
    • 4/5
      What a fun book! And delightfully irreverent and raunchy. Gods get bored too I suppose, and will go to nearly any lengths to entertain themselves, even up to destroying the world along with themselves. I've never been a great fan of the Greek gods, preferring the more pagan variety of gods and goddesses, but I found myself immensely enjoying Artemis and Apollo and lusting a bit after Aphrodite. A entertaining first effort from Ms. Phillips. I would love to see more.
    • 4/5
      If you need a break from your norm and a good laugh, than you have to read Gods Behaving Badly. The first chapter had me in tears. The communication between Apollo and Neil was so unbelievably funny I went back just to read an argument they had. This is Marie Phillips first novel, I thought she did a good job, laughs, sarcasm that was totally naughty, laughs, below the belt revenge between the gods, laughs, some vulgarity and yup more laughs .Knowledge of the Greek Gods is not needed to enjoy this hilarious book.
    • 3/5
      "Gods Behaving Badly" was a British farse that had me laughing at every turn. Here's the general gist: All of the Greek Gods are forced to live in squalor in a rundown dilapidated house in an unsavory neighborhood in London. Their powers are draining as no one belives in them anymore...they are myths after all. Enter Alice and Neil, mere mortals who tamper and change the Gods outlook. How that happens, you will just have to pick the book up to understand...don't want to give too much away.
    • 4/5
      The Greek gods are alive and well and living in a crumbling London house. And they still get a kick out of messing with mortals, namely the awkward and timid would-be couple Alice and Neil. I laughed quite a bit at this one, but I will say that it's much funnier to people familiar with Greek myth. The humor is rather adult, but then, so were the antics of the gods in Greek myth! I think I'll get a copy for a friend of mine whose passion is ancient mythology.
    • 5/5
      In Marie Phillips' Gods Behaving Badly, we find the Greek gods and goddesses living together in a filthy, run-down house in London. Artemis is a dog walker. Apollo is working as a t.v. psychic. Aphrodite is a phone sex operator. Eros is a born-again Christian. Dionysus owns a sleazy bar, "Bacchanalia". Hermes is still responsible for shepherding the souls of the dearly departed on their way into the underworld, but the entrance to Hades lies within a subway tube. The gods, "terribly weakened over time," are suffering the effects of being unneeded and unwanted. People just don't believe anymore, or they've fallen in with various heresies. "If it wasn't for Jesus," Artemis complains, "I'd probably still be living on Olympus, running on the hillsides." My God, even Eros has fallen under the spell of that famous carpenter. Bickering with Aphrodite, the petulant boy whines, "I wish the Virgin Mary was my mother." The only thing worse than these humiliations is the endless boredom they have to endure, and that turns out to be their Achilles heel.The gods seem to have little to do other than to harbor grudges, sabotage and double cross each other. To teach her nephew Apollo a lesson, Aphrodite has her son Eros shoot him with an enchanted arrow, making him fall in love with a very mediocre human named Alice. Of course, Alice is already in love with a geeky engineer named Neil, and so is destined to spurn Apollo's love. Chaos ensues when Apollo's sister Artemis hires Alice to clean the family's home. When Alice resists Apollo's advances, he lashes out threatening not only Alice but the entire world. Neil must channel his inner Hercules in order to "save the [cleaner:], save the world."Gods Behaving Badly is a thoroughly amusing story that captures both the spirit and capricious nature of the Greek gods and goddesses, and stitches them into a modern-day tapestry of hilarity! Marie Phillips shares her wonderfully wicked imagination with the reader, making for an impossible-to-put-down read. As the story quickly unfolds, Phillips peppers the novel with an abundance of Greek mythology, making the story laugh-out-loud funny.With a highly imaginative portrayal of the Greek gods dealing with their loss of power in "the age of non-believing," Marie Phillips' Gods Behaving Badly is delightful and refreshing. The modernization of the Greek gods, is as believable as it is hilarious in this witty mixture of mythology and reality. If you have any interest at all in Greek mythology, or if you're just looking for a book so funny it'll make you pee your pants, pick up Gods Behaving Badly.
    • 2/5
      I really wanted to like this book. The premise sounds really interesting (a comedy about the Greek gods living in modern London) but it was a huge dissappointment. The plot is boring and the characters (especially the human ones) are dull. It has some funny lines, though, but not enough to make up for the rest.
    • 2/5
      Wasn't able to get into this one, the premise was interesting, it just didn't capture my interest. The Greek Gods find themselves living in modern day London, working at jobs that they hate with their powers depleted.
    • 4/5
      Phillips delivers an enjoyable peek into what might happen if the gods walked the earth today. There were times when I thought the characterization was a bit superficial, though I particularly enjoyed the portrayal of Artemis. I would have hoped for the 'hero' portion of the story to have been a more substantial part of the book. When I got to the end, it felt like the rest of the book was simply to set up the final few chapters. Despite all of that, I was entertained and it was a quick read, perfect for short reading spurts during a commute, or curling up at the end of the day.
    • 4/5
      I have not enjoyed a book this much in years. It is pure laugh out loud fun. I'm sure there are people who will try to analyse it in terms of relations to present day religions, but I didn't try to make a theologic or anthropologic exercise out of it. If you ever studied Greek Mythology, you have enough under-pinnings to just plain love the hilarious antics.This was my weekly audio book, and the narrator was British. I had a great deal of fun with the human herione named Alice--I kept picturing her as Alice, the ditzy side-kick to Dawn French in the old BBC series "Vicar of Dibley". Neil, her he doesn't realize he is boyfriend, is such a mouse that you have to love his naivete, especially when he has to interact with gods he's never heard of!Apollo is portrayed as a promiscuous pompous ass, and the rivalry between Artemis and Aphrodite is played perfectly. The juxtaposition of the high intelligence of the one, and the extraordinary sex drive of the other is set against the futziness and foilbes of a bunch of run-down deities trying to live together in a flat in London. It's a hoot!Put this one on the list of "I need a perk me up" -it won't let you down.
    • 4/5
      Artemis, great huntress, ravager of defiling men, chaste guardian of the moon, leader of the hunt amidst the unspoiled and serene wilds, wears a track suit and walks inbred dogs. At least, in modern times she does. She and her Olympian family have been forced to relocate to a crumbling house in London, expelled by the rise of Christianity from their Greek homeland and the minds of humans. To make ends meet, the gods must labor like the poor schlubs they would torment in the good old days. Aphrodite works as a phone sex operator; Apollo, when not transmogrifying rebuffing conquests into trees, tries rather vaingloriously and unsuccessfully to be a TV psychic. Hermes is a workaholic, having been drafted in earlier times as the god of money, he never gets to stop in the modern age of financial worship. Demeter is withering like the plants she struggles to tend, and nobody has seen Zeus or Hera in some time. To say the Olympian family has fallen from lofty heights would be something of an understatement. However 'Gods Behaving Badly' is not just about the pouting and insouciant downward plunge of faded deities. It is a love story. A love story of the grandiosely small scale. The main characters are pathetically human, not so very gifted with looks or wealth or power, even if the female is an absurdly astute Scrabble player. Such verbose acumen does not prevent her from being a pawn of the gods, cast into schemings and vengeance different from times past only in that the scale of power is significantly less (all the gods are a bit paranoid about wasting what little power they have left, not withstanding Apollo's retribution when his vanity is snubbed). How is it then that the fate of the world comes to reside in one rather innocuous mortal's ken? The gods screwed up...again, that's how. One would think that immortal beings on the verge of becoming not-so-immortal would harken to a greater sense of...well, something other than petty jealousy and revenge. One would think. And be wrong. Full of wit and snark and joyous mythological winks and groans, Phillips has crafted a tale in the very spirit of the Greek myths, layering the blatant narcissism and self-interest of the gods over the poor humans who populate their shrinking playground. Anybody have the number for Aphrodite's direct line?
    • 3/5
      An amusing read and the issue of whether gods only exist or are powerful if you believe in them is quite profound really, don't you think?
    • 4/5
      After having moved from Olympus to London in the late 17th Century, the Greek gods have become mere shadows of their former, glorious selves. Aphrodite runs a phone sex line, Apollo has a gig as a television medium, and Zeus spends his days in bed watching "Dr. Who." But while their circumstances have changed, their natures haven't. There's still a ferocious amount of one-upsmanship going on in their decrepit London house, and when one of their nasty pranks goes badly awry, the consequences could prove to be, quite literally, the end of the world.Marie Phillips has taken the Greek pantheon and brought it down to earth with a resounding bang. Her portraits of the gods and goddesses are sharp and funny, and the plot she weaves around them makes use not only of their godlike proclivities but their all-too-human weaknesses. There is much about this book which is reminiscent of Neil Gaiman's work, though as a writer, Ms. Phillips is a little less deft than Gaiman. From time-to-time a wonderful chapter or passage will be interrupted with a detail that dulls the impact, usually by injecting too much seriousness, and perhaps even a bit too much agenda, into a story which should, above all, not be taken too seriously. She also tends to broadcast what will happen next, effectively limiting surprises for the readers. However, these are minor problems, and won't really spoil anything for most readers.Best of all, though, at the core of this novel is a delightful love story about two ordinary humans who get tangled up in the affairs of the gods, and in the end have to help rescue them from their own follies. It's in the character of these two humans, Alice and Neil, that Ms. Phillips' writing shines brightest. They're smart, unassuming, decent people who, in spite of tangling with gods and coming out the better for it, never lose sight of who they are.In all, a very respectable first novel. I'm looking forward to more from Marie Phillips.
    • 4/5
      This was a fun read, as entertaining as a trashy novel, but with a little more depth. First, I liked the way the Greek gods are portrayed, especially how their flaws might play out in our modern world. Even more interesting to me was how the author dealt with the depiction of legendary heroes. What does it take to be a hero today? That's the question I'm still thinking about, long after I put down the book.
    • 1/5
      Marie Phillips `Gods Behaving Badly' has an intriguing premise ["The Greek gods are alive, sharing a London house and wreaking havoc on mortals...."], but the execution is at best pedestrian. The characters are more cartoons than depictions, and the strokes are too broad for the characters or story line to hold this reader's interest. The writing style is too dispassionate, flat, and off-putting to carry the weak story line. To be frank, the short choppy sentences and lack of transitions felt more like a freshman essay early in the semester than a finished novel. It is, unfortunately for the author and reader, difficult to create boring characters who are interesting. Ah, the gods may be behaving badly, but who knew bad could be so boring? You may want to read a chapter or so before you buy