PEGASUS: THE FLAME OF OLYMPUS

PEGASUS: THE FLAME OF OLYMPUS by Kate O' Hearn

SPOILER ALERT!

This is a more difficult review to write, because I find myself in a bit of a struggle about this book. I hate to give up endings, but it is the ending that leaves me in somewhat of an internal conflict.

Pegasus: The Flame of Olympus is the story of a girl named Emily who lives in Manhattan. In the Prologue of the book we get a flash of a war going on at Mount Olympus between the Roman gods/goddesses and their enemies, the Nirads. The Nirads end up being able to topple and put out the Mount Olympus Flame found in The Temple of the Flame. This flame is the life giving strength to the gods and goddesses. There is a person on earth who carries some of that fire in her heart unbeknownst to her. Pegasus is the one god (he may look like a winged horse, but he is not) who can locate that person to get their flame back. Now to Emily! We find out early on that Emily's mother has recently died and her father is a policeman. Pegasus, heading to earth, crashes onto the roof of her apartment building wounded from the war. Emily and Pegasus quickly form a bond as she helps to nurse him back to health. Meanwhile, Nirads have arrived and are attacking the city. Emily's father is tied up at work dealing with the invasion (think Avengers). Through many chapters of evading Nirads, fights, being caught by a government agency who would like to run tests on them, two other gods arriving, etc we finally, in the last couple of chapters, discover that Emily is carrying the flame! Surprise! Her mother was a Roman goddess by the name of Vesta (keeper of hearths, family, etc). So what is my struggle? For the flame to be relit, Emily must willingly step into the bowl in the temple and be consumed by the fire that will burn from her heart outwards. By doing so, she will restore Mount Olympus and inadvertently help the entire world. This is love at its greatest and could be looked at as a Christ like example. However, this entire time we have only looked at Emily as human and in the last minute discovered she is part goddess. It gives you the feeling of a human dying for immortals, honestly, the reversal of what Christ did for us. There is a short paragraph where it describes the pain she goes through. She physically dies doing this. However, she has some sort of rebirth or mortal to immortal conversion experience. The book doesn't explain this, but she steps out of the fire, her mother is there, and all of Mount Olympus is restored. There are more books in the series, that I would imagine explain more of this and continue with threads that are left unresolved (such as her father becoming a government prisoner in the process).

Also, you do follow the story of one of the gods coming to earth that is a coming of age part and didn't concern me like Emily's story did.

There are no language issues. There is a little bit of blood and death, and of course, Emily's painful death. The only other thing is she lies to her father about Pegasus for a while to keep him hidden.

So all in all, the book is marked 8-12 years old. I wouldn't personally allow an 8-year-old to read this. Do I believe this book will lead to the destruction of our children? No- just be aware. Be willing to read and talk.