I really enjoyed this book. It made me giggle, when appropriate, and it made me cry. Listened to the audiobook, and what a beautiful story of love, family, independence and the struggle to find ones identity.

What a delightful story? The story is told from three points of view and narrated by three different people. Each character tells their story from the perspective of their birthplace. Mary is a first-generation American living in Detroit during the Great Depression. She is frustrated that her parents, especially her father, wants her to embrace her Greek heritage. For Mary this means she can look forward to an arranged marriage, a future only as a wife and mother, and absolutely no one listens to her dreams and plans.

Mary is determined to marry for love, show people that she has a brain for business, and be an all-around modern American woman. She is angry at her parents and wonders why her parents even came to America. Wouldn’t her mother be happier in France? If her father loves Greece so much, why isn’t he there? These questions circle around in her head until one day she finds a box of love letters her parent wrote to each other that tells their story.

This is a book I requested from NetGalley to read with my granddaughter for her summer reading challenge. It is a heartwarming look at a young girl dealing with a lot of disappointments. As she reads her parents’ letters, narrated from the parent point of view, she learns about their struggles, and hopes for their future. The revelation of love as the story progresses is touching and made more poignant because the stories are based on the author’s memories of her own grandmother’s tales.

It took a little longer for my granddaughter to get into the story than me, but in the end we both enjoyed learning about life during this difficult time in history. We both recommend the audiobook for parents and teenaged children. It spurs a lot of questions, and discussions plus a desire to learn more about our personal history. I highly recommend this exceptional narration of a thought provoking book.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this Audiobook ARC. The narration was amazing. I just listened to this lovely story while I was at the nail salon. This was a very emotional story. It is set in a period of time when war is the only priority. This short novel follows the life of 3 completely different people. But our MC is named Mary an American born young woman in Detroit. This story takes place during the race riots, the Great Depression and the hunger strikes. This story was sad but it didn’t make me cry. It was involved but it didn’t make me think. I feel like this story needed just a bit more. I had a several questions that required answering and Mary’s sister was the best human ever. Honestly, once she died I wanted to put the book down. Mary seemed to lose her self after this happened. But she finally comes into her self when she decides to take a leap of faith and go for what she believe in.
Give this book a try if you want to go on a ride through history.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review! All opinions are my own.

I started reading this book because it was on ‘Read Now’ on NetGalley, not knowing what to expect. It is blurbed by one of my favorite authors, Ruta Sepetys, but other than that I had no idea what it was about or anything. But I am glad I picked it up because it turned out to be a story about living life as an immigrant, family, love, and more during the Great Depression and war-time.

It follows three characters from three different parts of the world who all end up connected. Mary is a daughter of immigrants born in America. She is trying to discover who she is and learning the struggles of being labeled a “foreigner”. It also follows the stories of her parents. Gio, her father who was born in Greece but forced to flee and fight in World War I so he can become a U.S. Citizen. Jeanne, her mother who was born in France who becomes a nurse so she can help people.

I later found out that this story was inspired by the author’s own family which is really heartwarming to me. I love that a bit of their family’s history is now preserved in this book.

It was so beautifully written. This book is a novel in verse and I really enjoyed that format. Even if you are not a fan of poetry or novels in verse I would still recommend this as the prose was so gorgeous and lyrical. You could really feel the emotion in the words and I felt myself rooting for the characters by the end.

The different perspectives and timelines added depth and interest to the story. I will say that sometimes I got a bit confused on which perspective belonged to each character, but it wasn’t too much of an issue. It also could be due to my extreme lack of brain cells-

This story goes over all the issues from that time in history such as poverty, war, inequality, and more. I loved how it went over gender roles because I’ve never seen that in a historical fiction before. You learn about the characters' hardships and triumphs in their individual journeys but also their journeys together and the true cost of freedom. There’s a lot of tragedy in this book, but also love. And most importantly hope.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by this book. It made me want to learn more about real people and their stories during that time and I think that’s a mark of a good story.

Absolutely lovely book! This is a quick read but so very good. The book is about a young woman named Mary in 1933. Her family is in the grips of the Great Depression. Her parents are immigrants. Her father is from Greece and her mother is from France. They are in the process of arranging a marriage for Mary to a man in their community who is much older. Mary is dead set against it. She wants to have a career first and then a family. During this time Mary discovers a pack of unsent letters in the cellar of the family’s apartment. They were written during WWI. The letters are signed with nicknames and Mary is left to figure out who wrote them.
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The book is heartbreaking at times but has so much hope and love. This family loves each other. Even though at times they struggle with their relationships they come back together.
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Thanks to @netgalley @andrewsmcmeel for an advanced copy of this audiobook. It is delightful!

Thanks to NetGalley and Andrews McMeet Publishing for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars

Beautifully written book told in three points of view. The main character is Mary, a teen living in the 1930s Detroit during the depression with her brothers, sister, and immigrant parents. Mary wants more from life than what her father and society will allow her. Colby Cedar Smith has some fantastic lines such as “your eyes are the color of cultures clashing”.

I had both the audio book and digital copy. I liked both and not sure I could pick one over the other if pressed. The book is written in verse so it flies by on the page and you can see additional author emphasis by how the words are grouped together and with italics. But the audiobook flowed well and the narrators had excellent emotion. I don’t like reading books on the NetGalley ebook app as you can’t highlight or search by word like on Kindle.

Thank you NetGalley, Andrew McMeel Publishing, and Colby Cedar Smith for the copy of this audiobook!

I really enjoyed this book! It’s been a bit since I picked up a YA historical fiction, and I picked this up on a whim. This book takes place in the 1930s and follows first-generation American Mary, daughter of a French immigrant and a Greek immigrant. Despite seeing herself as American, her parents expect her to behave like a ‘Good Greek Girl.’ This means not riding bikes, not giving her opinion, marrying some old Greek man, and having babies. Being a ‘Good Greek Girl’ does not include working in a store, aspirations of owning a business, or falling for All-American Billy.

But when she finds unstamped letters in her family's small home dated a little over a decade ago, how can she be expected to marry Demetrius, a gray-haired man who she does not love?

This book highlights not only the clashing of cultures but also the clashing of generations. While we see and sympathize with Mary as she grows into a young woman with different views, we also get glimpses into her parents’ pasts and the struggles they had to face while living through a war. These glimpses into the past help us understand whether parents cling to certain safeties such as cultural traditions. It’s also very poetic to pick out the parallels between Mary’s story and her parents’ despite the significantly different circumstances.

A very cute, empowering, and poetic coming of age story set in 1933, this story is an excellent look into life in the 1930s for young immigrant women.

Thank You, Andrew McMeet Publishing house & Colby Cedar Smith for providing me an early copy of this book to give my honest review.


Call me Athena it’s a book that would completely make you fall in love with the story.
I’m one moment I was just listen to the story and the other I was immerse completely in the tale. The writing of Colby Cedar Smith it’s bewitching.

The story follows 3 characters who have completely different but their tale started with happiness and then follows grief, loss, and heartbreak. Their story intertwined beautifully and they learn that their actions have consequences. I feel a super connection with Mary, every time she feels like everything was hopeless, sad happiness of emotion I felt the same way. Gio and Jeanne's story was so heartbreaking and I can see why they were so overprotective with their children. I hate it with all my heart Dominic and I was so happy when Mary dump the drink and Gio hit him. It was completely fulfilling. To be honest, when Billy come into the picture I thought that he was gonna a spoiled brat that only wanted Mary because she was beautiful but I was wrong. Billy won my heart like he did with Mary. In the end, I shipped them so hard. And Mary getting a job was so gratifying. Forsooth I would love it we would learn more about the future of the characters more about Billy and Mary future together.

I guarantee that you will feel all their emotions as your own. It’s thoroughly will recommend this book to everyone.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Andrew McMeel Publishing for the opportunity to review this audiobook. On a whim, I picked this book up, as it was a listen now title. I honestly really enjoyed it. I found the narrators for each of the three characters to be captivating, and the prose were beautiful. The novel is written in verse, which normally is not really my thing, however it was a really thoughtful and interesting format. I think I may have enjoyed it more reading it in the written form however, it was still a very eye opening, and at times heartbreaking read. This book is an interesting history lesson on 1930s Detroit, loosely based on stories from Smith's grandmother, and turning it into something that is so personal, raw and emotional. Mary, Gio, and Jeanne were all fascinating characters, and while at times I wasn't sure how these stories would come together exactly, but once they did, it was a heartwarming and beautiful. Historical fiction readers will enjoy this one!

I truly enjoyed how this story was put together. We’re mainly following Mary, a young girl of immigrant parents living in Detroit in the 1930s, whilst we also get to see her parents stories intertwined with her own. I loved seeing how the different cultures and time periods influences each of the characters and their interactions with each other. It was a great depiction of interpersonal relationships within a family.

The narration of the audiobook was also fantastic. This is a book in verse, and I think listening to it with its different narrators, rather than just physically reading it, truly brings it to life. The voices were distinct and beautifully portrayed, and it made the experience all that much better.

Finally, this story touches on so many themes, from love to life as an immigrant to individualism and I think all of them were very well-balanced. Everything is treated with care and explored in a beautiful way. Despite Mary’s story being at the core of the novel, the themes pertaining to her parents’ stories are equally paid-attention to, which makes this book feel like a very complete family story.

I would also like to add that I think it’s fantastic how the author was inspired by her own family history and how she was able to derive such a beautiful story from that—not without much research, as she mentions in the author’s note.

All in all, I truly believe this book is worth a shot. It’s a fast read that deals with many interesting and important topics in a very delicate way. Additionally, I recommend listening to the audiobook if you can.

A heart wrenching book in verse that follows three characters’ coming of age story during some of the hardest of times in history. This iOS YA, and I think the subject matter is tough but perfect a perfect fit for a highshool-aged or older individual. The author packed so much into this and there’s honestly not that much writing on the pages (again, in verse). It’s perfect for that small snippet info that youth love these days. I always like to have hard copy and audio for verse. I highly recommend having both, but if you have to choose the audio was fantastic!

Net Galley was kind enough to allow me to read an ARC of “Call Me Athena: Girl from Detroit” by Colby Cedar Smith. I was giving this ARC as a digital copy but for myself I cannot read on my phone. Luckily, there was an audiobook which was very enjoyable!

First off, this cover is absolutely gorgeous! And definitely catches your eye.

This story is told in verse form from three different perspectives - Mary, Gio and Jeanne. Gio and Jeanne are Mary’s parents.

Mary is young, dreamer, full of life and is looking for love. She does not want to be a typical good Greek girl as her parents aspire her to be.
She meets a young man while working at her parent’s store and she is immediately smitten. He is not what her parents would approve of and she often wonders what it would be like to have a “regular last name” like Smith. We see Mary grow up in the course of this book. She starts off timid and aspirational and in the end she is strong and bold.

Gio & Jeanne’s stories are of their upbringings and we learn how they eventually met while he was injured at war. Gio by the end has an accident at his employers were he lost his thumbs and now can no longer work. We learn that once Jeanne had Mary, she given up her job as a nurse to be a stay at home mother. Gio goes to return home for a bit and Mary knows she has to work.

I am not going to spoil the ending but Mary is introduced to a very powerful man and brought in how groundbreaking it was for a woman to do man’s job.

There was a lot going on and having pretty much 3 different stories happening at the same time was a little confusing for me. Overall though, there are so many stories similar to this family and should continue to be told.

Call Me Athena follows a young woman in 1930s Detroit who is not only living through the Great Depression but is struggling with her identity as a woman under the pressures of familial and cultural obligations. We get her perspective as we also volley between her mothers and fathers perspectives as they tell their stories of their childhoods and how they came to immigrate to the U.S.

First of all, that cover is absolutely gorgeous. Smith does a good job of weaving these stories together while touching on many topics including poverty, war, hunger, disease and the social expectations of woman in particular. I actually did not read the description at first so I didn't know the other perspectives were of her parents and I thought that was a better way to consume the story.

Personally, I dont think the book needed to be in verse (I listened the the audiobook though) and it would have provided more ground to really dig into each of these stories. Often times I felt like the perspectives were changing too quickly without enough time to settle into the story being told. Each of the stories was really interesting and engaging so I wanted to spend more time with them, especially the mother. Considering this book deals heavily with the expectations of women, I thought it would have been really powerful to see more about how those expectations were placed on her mom and how they are now effecting her and how Mary is raised.

Overall, I thought this was a beautiful story that grants a short snap shot into the immigrant experience and the circumstances that lead to people wanting/needing to immigrate. I also appreciated the historical aspects about Ford in particular and that bit of micro history from Detroit.

I received the paperback of this book as well as the audiobook.
Since it was my very first time reading a novel in prose, I figured it best to have it in different formats.
In general, I did really like the story who speaks for so many immigrants, and children of immigrants, moving countries and trying to adapt to everything while still wanting to hold some of their roots alive.
I enjoyed the different narrators reading part in the audiobook.
Novels in prose won't be my favorite type of novels. I just can't enjoy them. But that is just a personal preference.

Thank you NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I’m so glad that I decided to download this audiobook to listen to today. I’m usually hesitant when it comes to historical fiction because my history with that genre ends up with me putting it aside or taking forever to read it. However, I don’t think I pressed pause once while listening.

This book follows Mary who wants to be more independent as a woman in the 1930s. Her parents, however, want her to be a "good Greek girl." Mary is longing for the opportunity to make her way as an American woman, but her parent’s traditions are holding her from that dream. She discovers old letters written by her parents while they were growing up in Greece and France. This story follows both Mary and her parents as they deal with struggles and try to find their way through it all. They fight for love, freedom, equality, along with traditions and heritage.

This story was so captivating and beautifully written! The characters' backgrounds were different, yet in the end, what they wanted and fought for, all seemed to connect. I loved this book so much! It’s also written in-verse, but in the audiobook, it sounded like it wasn’t. Overall, I give this book 5 stars, and I'll be ordering this book to have as a physical copy once it comes out (August 17) to be able to read the in-verse version. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for more works by Colby Cedar Smith!

I understand this is a novel in prose, so I can forgive some of the overly flowery language, but the overly dramatic narrator’s voice almost made this a DNF for me. The narration was not horrible for all characters, but Mary (who is really the main character) was almost impossible to listen to and I found myself fast-forwarding at times.
I found the switch back and forth between characters confusing and annoying at times, it was sometimes hard to figure out which character was telling the story, despite them all being very different. But, that could be because I wasn’t really interested in any of them so they blended together in blandness.
I’m confused about the title… I know Mary utters the line at one point, but Athena is a powerful goddess warrior, and Mary is a girl (not so successfully) wanting to break away from family constraints. She vaguely does this in the end, but more by circumstances and not necessarily by her own strength.
Although the characters are young adults for most of the novel, I would definitely not consider this a YA book. My middle and high students would be immensely bored and there isn’t really anything upon which to draw them in. Maybe a couple who are interested in family histories or slightly historical fiction? I’m honestly not sure who the audience for this would be.
Although meant to be the focal point, Mary’s story was the least interesting to me and her parents’ stories were much more charming and engaging.

I undoubtedly need a hard copy of this book on my shelf and reread it as much as I can. There are passages that I need present in my daily life. I want my daughters to read it. I want to share it with other people's daughters. Thank you, Mary!
#CallMeAthena #NetGalley

To be quite honest, I picked this book up from Netgalley, as I needed an audiobook to listen to and this was one was available as a read now and I liked the look of the cover. I am so pleased I did, I got so much more than I bargained for, this book is beautifully written and the narrators were a joy to listen to.

The book follows the story of Mary a teenager brought up in a small apartment with her siblings and immigrants parents, trying to make a better life for themselves and their family in 1930's Detroit, Mary is trying to find her place in the world, longing to be an independent American woman, whilst he parents want her to be a 'good greek girl'. she can't help repeat the question, why did they every come to America, the land of opportunity if they are still so set in their ways and culture? She then discovers letters written by her parents in their native countries from 1915, Her father Giorgos is born and raised in Greece and her mother, Jeanne in France both living through the horrible war years, and dreaming of a better life. Through these letters we see their hopes, fears and struggles just to survive. The hardship or war and the years after whilst the world tried to recover.

It is a beautiful book about love, hope, survival and family. I enjoyed it even more on discovering the book was loosely based on the author's grandmother and great grandparents. It is so important for our generation and those who follow, to realise the sacrifices our ancestors made for their families in times of war, desperation and hunger.

Thank you again to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Expected Publication date August 17th 2021.

Thank you to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for providing this advanced reader's copy!

This is a dual narrative, following two stories, one in 1930s Detroit, and the other in Europe during WW1. The writing is beautiful, and the author successfully manages to keep the pace uninterrupted while weaving between the two narratives and 3 POVs.
The book sets out to imagine the life of the author's grandmother and show the multi-faceted experience of the American identity as well as show the everyday struggles of immigrant families, especially women in the first half of the 20th century. The book has a lot to say about family, belonging, and the type of wars that are fought.
For me personally, it took a while for the story to pick up, but once it did, I couldn't put it down. The narrators of the book did a phenomenal job of bringing the characters to life and worked very well together.
It is a perfect read for fans of Lovely War by Julie Berry.

Five Things about Call Me Athena by Colby Cedar Smith

1. This book is gorgeous inside and out. I feel connected to all three voices.
2. I read the whole thing in one sitting. I didn’t even mean to. It just engrossed me.
3. Before I’d finished, I had preordered my own copy to arrive on the release date because this is a read again book. This is a make my shelf and mind gorgeous book.
4. Yes, it’s a book in verse and yes, it’s historical fiction but it’s more. It’s greater than the sum of its parts and it defy’s an age range definition. Everyone is going to find something for them in this timeless story.
5. With such a strong debut, I can’t wait to read whatever Smith offers us next.