I really enjoyed this book. It's written beautifully in verse and flows magnificently. The author has a flourish for writing the narrative. The plot is easy to follow and the ending is magical.

My first audiobook from @netgalley... and after getting used to audible, the experience fell a little short... There were no chapter titles, making it difficult to fo back and listen... The app does not have the option to pause at the end of a chapter.

My second book written in verse, and I loved the story... about teenaged Mary's struggle to find her identity, and where she fits... She finds a stack of letters that her parents wrote to each other during WW1, and that takes us back to their stories...

The narrators brought to life these three memorable chatacters, and I quite enjoyed this as an audiobook... I can but imagine how proud the author must be of her paternal grandmother...

I felt that Gail Shalan's narration was a tad overly dramatic at certain times in the book... and that was annoying.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a beautiful surprise that I've truly enjoyed. A story written in verse that expresses so much and makes you feel a lot better than if it was written in prose. It was sad, romantic, inspiring, heartwarming and more. Colby Cedar Smith is a great poet and storyteller. Also, I've followed this audio version with the written one. It was amazing which is narrated by Gail Shalan, Hope Newhouse and Ramiz Monsef. It was fantastic because the narrators knew how to express,, through their voices, the deep feelings and emotions of each character. They even used French and Greek accents to give it more authenticity. It was such a beautiful experience that I enjoyed so much.

We have a story of two generations, one during the first world war and the second one after. We follow three young adults from different countries.

First, we listen to Mary's story from Detroit, Michigan in 1933, a daughter of a Greek and a French immigrants who they had so much dreams about America but discover a life more different and difficult than they had dreamt about with the Great Depression and a number of kids that they have to feed. Mary doesn't want to follow in her family's culture and traditions toward women which means to be "a good Greek girl" instead she wants to become an independent modern American woman. Mary's story is inspired mainly by the grandmother of the author.

Second, we have the story of Jeanne from Saint Malo, France in 1915, the daughter of a rich doctor who is called to help in the WWI , Jeanne starts volunteering as a nurse at the hospital with the injured soldiers where she will meet Le Loup. Then, we have Giorges (Gio)'s story who starts from Komnina,Cenral Greece in 1915 to Northwestern France 1918, Gio's dream was to have his own boat and becoming a fisherman like his late father but things turn out very different for him.

Each character speaks with his/her own voice about their dreams for the future, their family, their hopes and what they have witnessed or their experience with the loss of a loved one during their journeys. This book is one of the greatest and most beautiful crafted historical fiction that I've read for such a long time.

I think novels in verse just aren’t for me. I can never seem to connect to the characters in those, and Call Me Athena wasn’t an exception.
The story itself sounded interesting in theory, but the way it was executed was a bit boring.
In the end this book fell flat for me.

Mary is an American born daughter of Greek and French immigrants. She live in 1930s Detroit with her parents, her brothers and her twin sister. Mary dreams of being an independent American woman but her family wants her to stay securely ensconced in her roll as the "good Greek girl". They have even arranged her marriage to a nice Greek boy.

Mary finds her parents letters beginning when they met during the war and continued throughout their time apart. Through these letters she learns about her parents in their younger years and see the early love story form.

What comes from this book is a beautiful story of fighting to be yourself while paying homage to your family roots. It is the story of searching for acceptance for your true self through freedom, love and equality.

If you enjoyed Elizabeth Acevedo's Poet X and Clap When You Land, you will enjoy this story in verse. Based on the author's family history, this captivating story told through letters and the main character's narration gives an interesting perspective on immigration and independence. The narrators perfectly reflect the story being told and do an excellent job of bring the story to life.

An an American or an Immigrant, who are you now. This is a central theme in this book. Mary, born in the USA wants freedom and a life beyond her immigrant parents. She is a contradiction certainly b/c she also values her parents values.

Can Mary ever be free and understand the new world. Will her parents understand her? These are difficult questions.

First of all I would like to say a HUGE thank you for Colby Cedar Smith for the privilege of reviewing this book for her. This was my first ever Audiobook and I absolutely loved it!!!!

I am also thankful for Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to read this ARC.
I found the story about Colby's grandmother and great grandmother heartwarming, a truly beautiful book written in verse about three characters from three different parts of the world who all ended up connected in different ways. I found that the book being written in verse, made the presentation of the story so beautiful , so special.
Mary, is a daughter of French and Greek Immigrants. The story is about her and her struggles as she makes a life for herself in Detroit in the 1930s. It portrays the life of immigrants during the Great Depression, hunger strikes and violent riots. How in a small apartment with her parents and siblings and how Mary's parents yearn for her to be a "Good Greek Girl", she wishes to be independent and find love and her own business. Mary's story ends up connecting with flashbacks of her parent's childhoods in Greece and in Northern France. Creating such an impactful story.
After completing this book, it leaves you with the sense of hope.There are many moments in the book that leave you feeling quite sad, and how the characters go through some very hard times. I felt that, the loss, the pain, how all the air is sucked out of them due to tragedy. Having lost my own son two years ago, grief is complicated, the pain never leaves and only those that have endured such a loss can understand exactly how it is felt in this book.
With that the characters still managed in their pain and suffering , show us we can still navigate a life of hope, love and family.
This book is a timeless book about real people and their journey as they navigate life through many challenges. I highly recommend this and it will leave you having a piece of Call Me Anthea remain in your heart always as family is everything. We all, as families, have a story to tell, and this one is so beautifully written how can you not share. I know I will, Again thank you Colby for sharing this story with us. For that I am truly grateful

ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW
Call Me Athena is like a sad song that I can’t help but listen to even though it makes me sad because it touches my soul and gives me a sliver of truth.

I had the opportunity to both read and listen to Call Me Athena. The audiobook and e-book are in Read Now and Listen Now and since I rarely listen to audiobooks, I thought it would be better if I have a written version of the book as well. It was a good decision on my part. Because Call Me Athena is written in verse and I wouldn’t have known that if I only listened to it. I love the narration did in the audiobook. Yes, it also sounded poetic and very dramatic. I really liked it. The narrator did a great job. But seeing the words written in verse also gave me a satisfying feeling because I generally love poetry.

Call Me Athena is historical fiction. It is based on the life of Mary, the author’s grandmother. We are told the story of Mary as the daughter of a Greek and French immigrant struggling to make a life in 1930s Detroit. I say it over and over, I’m no fan of history, but there is always a story, a peek in the past, that captures my attention, heart, and soul. Since I’m not so familiar with the history, I can only say that the author painted a very vivid picture of how the immigrants used to live during the Great Depression and war. It was a hard part of history, and the author indeed showed that through Mary’s eyes.

Mary’s personal life is no rainbows. Her struggles and dreams and hopes were so very real, it was hard to read or listen to her sometimes. And indeed, it is fitting that this story is written in verse, because Mary’s life is poetry. Her story will remain in me for a long, long time. Even though she lived in a dark times, I couldn’t help but find hope in her story. She gives me hope. It’s like listening to a very sad song, it makes you cry but it also gives you an unexplainable joy because touches your soul.

But this book has three point of views and I loved that it is this way. It is great to see the world through the eyes of Mary and her two siblings. I didn’t just get to sympathize with Mary, but also with the whole community of immigrants that I will never meet. The other two perspectives are very important to the story and added some elements that really made the whole book rise to the next level. I love it. Also, the three characters with point of views are so distinctive from each other, I never had a problem recognizing whose POV I’m reading or listening to.

Overall, this book is just amazing. I think everyone, no matter what their preferences in reading are will enjoy this book.

"Call Me Athena. She wasn't a good Greek girl either."

In 1930s Detroit, Mary struggles with the expectations of her Greek immigrant parents and her opposing need to be a modern American girl. This book works particularly well on audio - I loved hearing Mary's voice (read by Gail Shalan) and I could easily relate to her coming of age tale. Mary's narrative is interspersed with letters and flashbacks to her parents' lives, showing the reader how the struggles the three different narrators experience echo each other.

This is a young adult book that I think families would enjoy reading together, since you get all of the different generational perspectives. It's a concise read but definitely packs an emotional punch. I loved that the story is loosely based on real events and that it helped me learn about a period in US history I'm less familiar with.

Thank you to Andrews McMeel Publishing for providing an ALC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Mary lives in a small apartment with her parents (immigrants from Greece and France), twin sister, and brothers during the Great Depression. Her parents want her to be a “good Greek girl”, but Mary dreams of marrying for love, owning her own business, and being free and independent. In <>Call Me Athena</i>, Mary's story is interspersed with flashbacks to her parents' childhood/young adult years in Greece and France.

I enjoyed Athena's story, the classic story of a girl longing to be free of the expectations put on her by her parents. I also liked getting to see her Greek father and French mother's lives in the old country and how it shaped their relationship. I thought it was really cool that this novel is based loosely on the author's grandma.

Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me an audio ARC of this book.

I've only read one novel in verse before. After reading this, I'm starting to think that these types of books aren't my thing. I really have mixed views of the pacing in this book because it is a novel in verse things move very fast, and very little detail is given. You're basically told what happens without a build-up or explanation behind the events happening. This made it hard for me to attach to the story because it was jumping around so much. There were so many switches between characters and so many chapters it was just really hard to get involved in the story.

I gave it three scars for many reasons. I neither liked nor disliked this story. I'm sad to say that I will probably forget almost everything that occurred in this story very quickly. Even though it has over 500 pages, there was little that happened in this story. I also don't really get the point of the story. There wasn't really any end goal. It was nice that the author added a little bit of her family history into the story but the only major thing that happened was Mary trying to overcome the stereotypical gender roles that were in place at the time. So it has a good message and good characters with strong personalities, but not a lot happened to make this an entire story. I feel like there needed to be something worse substantial.

And there were also some romantic relationships and storylines that follow couples, but I also found it hard to get behind their relationship because there was no buildup or information to understand why those two people connected. It was very forced and so this major part of the story was also a letdown for me. Again this could be because it's a novel in verse, and I'm so used to a regular story that has more words to explain the relationships.

I thought that the narration for this book got a lot of feeling into this story. I personally did not find this story sad or emotional but the narration for Mary had a lot of feeling and almost a depressive tongue in her voice. So there married or did really well and setting a mood for the story. I did find it a little bit overdramatic because she just seemed sad the entire time. The narrators for the other two characters were better than the one for Mary because they had a wider range of tones that matched the situation instead of just being depressed the whole time. Overall, I really like the narration for this book, and it brought the story to life for me.

I liked this book, but I didn’t feel invested in the characters. I knew from the beginning who was writing the love letters, and maybe that was intentional, but I would have liked a little more of a surprise on that.

Splendid! I really needed a story about a strong female lead and Call Me Athena did not disappoint.

It is a story about family, migration, feminism, hopes, and dreams and I adored every chapter. The best part about this book is that you get to understand different points of view, from different time periods aaaaand it was inspired by the author's grandmother.

Thank you very much, NetGalley for this one!

Thank you for the advanced copy! While stories told in verse are not my favorite, I can appreciate the narrators and their talent. The story was good and I can respect the emotions but it was not a favorite of mine.

I have to start saying that this has been one of the best books I've read this year. The story takes its time and the characters grow little by little, but it's just so strong and well-written that you just can't put it down.

I really liked all three POVs and the shifts between them. All of them were essential for the understanding of the story, providing it with layers and layers, showing us how Mary's story goes deeper than what she sees. The way the author worked with the issues tackled here was very nice as well, and as someone who is not familiar with american history in the 20th century, it was a good way to open my eyes and do a little more research.

The only thing I have to say here is: read this book! It's a nice story, balancing sad and calm moments, and I can't wait to see more people talking about it.

"This war feels like a virus. No medicine can kill it, only patience, while we wait for the sickness to run its course."

4.5/5 stars, rounded up.

I picked up "Call Me Athena" by chance, intrigued by the cover and the description, and I was absolutely not disappointed. This is a wonderful historical fiction with a dash of coming of age, exploring the struggles of trying to live up to one's origins while adapting to a migrant culture. The audiobook was narrated by Hope Newhouse, Gail Shalan and Ramiz Monsef, whose performances were emotional and enthralling.

The story unravels through three perspectives — Maria, a Greek-French daughter of immigrants living in Detroit, Michigan, during the Great Depression who tries to balance between playing the role of a good Greek girl and wanting to be a rebellious young American woman. By chance, she stumbles upon a bundle of letters that reveal to her stories her parents have kept from her and her siblings since the Great War; Gio, Maria's father, a young man whose tragic circumstances leading to him travelling halfway across the world and back, thrust into a war he doesn't himself understand; and Jeanne, a French girl, admirer of her legendary saintly namesake, Jeanne d'Arc whose paths cross with Gio's at a most unexpected time.

Cedar Smith weaves a beautiful story out of the three perspectives, exploring what it means to abandon your home for the sake of your family, meshing the horrors and pain of war with the youthful hope of the next generation. She does not shy away from describing what it felt like to live through the Great War as a soldier and a nurse, as well as the struggles of poverty during the Great Depression, and delivers some intense gut punches at times. The settings are vibrant, buoyant, full of life; the characters experience highs and lows, "Call me Athena" is charming, at times heartbreaking, and absolutely full of heart, leaving you hopeful for the ending, despite the knowledge of what course history took.

A beautifully told story across generations that highlights the hardship of immigration and the roles of women in the first decades of the 20th century. We might Mary, the American-born daughter of Greek/French immigrants in the first years of the 1930s as the Great Depression is taking its heavy toll on people. She wants to experience the freedom America offers and break away from the strict roles being a 'good Greek daughter' dictates. We also hear the stories of Gio and Jean, her Greek and French father and mother, and how it was that they met and ended up in Detroit. It's a story told in three very different voices that beautifully connects the dots through hardship, loss, bravery, and love. The cultural elements are strong because they play an important element in the story, but the encouraging and inspiring story is universal.
The multicast narration is great, as it brings life to the characters and helps really differentiate and voice the very different characters and times. My only complaint about anything to do with the book is that the narrator for Gio (Ramiz Monsef) makes the accent a little bit too authentic at times and I had trouble understanding him. But that's partly on me, so it's a minor detail.
I'd never heard of a novel in verse, but I'm delighted to have discovered it thanks to this beautiful book by Colby Cedar Smith and I'll happily sing its praises to anyone who will listen.

Extremely happy thanks to Andrews McMeel Audio, Andrews McMeel Publishing for the extremely enjoyable read/listen!

This audiobook pulls you in from the start hearing the story of a young girl who just wants to have her own identity & without constant expectations from her parents. I wouldn’t call Mary a rebel but she is headstrong yet mostly respectful to her parents. She tries to understand her place as a child of immigrants at a dire time in America.
I appreciated the back story of Mary’s parents as young immigrants in America and their struggles to be accepted into this new world. They only want what’s best and proper for their children. You will get a vivid picture of their lifestyle and their love of family and tradition. The different narrators of this book bring this story to life through their accented voices. Highly recommend this audiobook to get a glimpse of life as an immigrant during the Great Depression.

Call Me Athena was absolutely stunning! A novel in verse, the writing was evocative and simple, beautiful and insightful. Told from several perspectives, Call Me Athena tells the story of a family grappling with the effects of war, disease, and poverty. Mary, the teenage daughter of Greek and French immigrants, is seeking autonomy and actively avoiding marriage to an older man in Depression Era Detroit. Interspersed throughout Mary's story are letters from her parents, from their time in their home countries during WW1. The emotional depth, the family dynamics, the love and pain and growth in this story... all left me deeply moved. Thank you so much to NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this book!