Review: The Immortals by Jordanna Max Brodsky

Imagine you are a god. Or a goddess. Okay fine, let’s capitalize the heck out of these. Imagine you are a God or a Goddess. And imagine you have an infinite amount of power due to all the people worshiping you.

And then imagine the advent of modernism and imagine losing all the power you took for granted because people have stopped believing in you.

Ouch, right?

Selene DiSilva used to be a Goddess, back when she was known as Artemis and worshiped for reasons Wikipedia will elaborate for you. But the age of modernism and rise of monotheistic religions put an end to all that. She, along with her brethren, made her way over to the New World and ended up in New York because where else in the New World would an immortal, previously divine, being go? (I’m just saying.)

Now she lives a spartan life, barely holding on to what remains of her immortality. She helps out women caught in abusive relationships and works really hard on not making connections to humans. Until someone starts ritually murdering women and Selene finds that her powers are returning. She pairs up with the ex-boyfriend of the first murder victim and tries to find out who is behind these horrific acts before the ritual is completed.

There is no denying that Greek Gods are a treasure trove of stories that have been frequently excavated by writers. Retellings in multiple genres abound. What sets Brodsky’s The Immortals apart from the rest is the amount of research she must have done to tell the story and the seamless manner in which this research has been incorporated into the narrative.

Do not look to Selene if you want a heroine that conforms to the traditional heroine. She is a goddess and there were moments during the narrative that I was hard-pressed to find even a glimmer of humanity in her behaviour. Her indifferent attitude to human life, indeed the callous manner in which she kills men who behave outside her expectations, is chilling and unsettling. It is only her–and I feel really odd about saying this–unwilling attraction to Theo who is the fictional equivalent of the Criminal Minds Reed (at least that’s how I picture him) that humanizes her.

The mystery is incredibly complex but not in an esoteric manner. The common reader, the one like me who has no idea of any of the scholarship that exists about the Greek Gods, will be able to follow the narrative perfectly for all its academic fluxes. The writing is smooth as is the cadence of the narrative. I especially loved how Brodsky trusts in her readers’ intelligence to follow the story as it marries the modern and the occult.

If I had any complaints, it would be that the romance is a bit too intrusive to the primary plot and does, I feel, take away from Selene in the final moment. I understand that Selene’s feelings for Theo lead to her changing and her acceptance of her changing but at the same time I feel that the romantic element could have been reined in a little to give the story a subtler taste which would not have detracted from Selene’s divine nature.

All in all though, I did enjoy what I read. If you are into Greek Gods and have had enough of Percy Jackson and want something more sophisticated and complex, I recommend this.