ARC Review: Nobody's Goddess by Amy McNulty

Goodreads / Month9Books
Published April 21, 2015
ARC via Month9Books

In a village of masked men, magic compels each man to love only one woman and to follow the commands of his “goddess” without question. A woman may reject the only man who will love her if she pleases, but she will be alone forever. And a man must stay masked until his goddess returns his love—and if she can’t or won’t, he remains masked forever.

Seventeen-year-old Noll isn't in the mood to celebrate. Her childhood friends have paired off and her closest companion, Jurij, found his goddess in Noll’s own sister. Desperate to find a way to break this ancient spell, Noll instead discovers why no man has ever chosen her. 

Thus begins a dangerous game between the choice of woman versus the magic of man. And the stakes are no less than freedom and happiness, life and death—and neither is willing to lose.

I’m sorry. I really am. But, y’all, I just really, seriously don’t like the main character. At all. But, y’all that’s only one of the things about this book that don’t really float my boat. Oh yes. Did y’all know that I’ve never read a time travel book that I have liked? Never. Never ever ever. I didn’t know this was time travel. *le sigh* The writing and composition was really on point- don’t get me wrong. But the book as a whole just really wasn’t my cup of hot chocolate.

Okay. So in this futuristic society, women rule the men. If a man takes of his mask before his goddess returns his love he’s turned to dust. Poof. All gone. No one asks questions and they give thanks to the first goddess for mercy and kindness without a thought as to why. Except for Noll. In the beginning of the novel I was like thank the heavens above that someone in this town want to know ‘why’ but as the tale progressed I grew annoyed by her antics. In all honesty, I found her to be selfish. I wanted to shake her a say girl, you can ask questions without destroying people. Because that whole ruining things and messing things up and NOT USING THE BRAINS THE GOOD LORD GAVE HER were are particular talents of hers that made me want to stab her. Only a little though.

The love interest was- I thought-  was fairly obvious, but for spoiler reasons I’m just going to leave him out of the review. Not because I didn’t like him. I mean I liked him more than I liked Noll.

What did I like about this novel? I bet you think I’m going to say nothing. Well, you’d be wrong. I liked the whole ‘history repeats itself’ concept that was a pretty major theme in this novel. Yup, so there you have it.

So, no I can’t recommend this book. I think if you like time travel you’ll like it more than I did for sure. But I just found Noll to be rather unlikable. 

Do any of y'all fancy time travel novels?