Colby Cedar Smith took me on a beautiful journey and I loved every second of it. Historical fiction just always hits and this book solidified why it is one of my favourite genres. A sweeping story across time and generations ? Sign me up. Also i’m having a great reading month so far so *cross toes* that it continues.

Call Me Athena follows a young woman, Mary, as she struggles for independence and identity as the daughter of Greek and French immigrants in 1930s Detroit. Mary yearns for true love, to have a career of her own, to become a modern American woman much to the frustration of her parents who want her to be a ‘good greek girl’. Told in verse, this novel captures the perspectives of three narrators, Mary in 1930s USA and Gio and Jeanne’s in WW1 , and delivers a powerful message of love, grief, courage and most importantly, hope.


Aahhh this book just made me feel many things and I'm still thinking about it. I was angry ,I laughed , I swooned , and probably would have cried if i had tears left. The lyrical verse perfectly carried this story and breathed life into the narratives of the characters. The story, which was loosely based on the author’s own family , tells the story of being an immigrant in America so beautifully, detailing the reality of being in the land of the free but chained and struggling at almost every turn. The yearning for a life of your own and choices of your own in a world that doesn't make room for you because of your background or your gender. Mary was a captivating character to read from , I was rooting for her right from the beginning and felt myself cheering for her at every obstacle. All of the characters in the book had depth to them and this helped make their stories so much more engaging and made their actions more understandable. I don’t know how to talk about this book other than discussing my favourite moments so I will now get onto that.

This audiobook really added to the story and the emersion into the world and emotions of the characters. I listened the audiobook whilst reading with my eyes and would recommend that method for an optimal experience. The narrators were all really good and had different accents which helped differentiate the characters.

This book comes out 17 August 2021 and I think everyone should pick it up if you enjoy historical fiction and stories told in verse. I cant wait to buy it so I can go back and relive all my favourite moments and poems ☺️

**Okay now for some maybe spoilery gushing**


Billy and Mary were so freaking cute, i just bookmarked i think all of their moments because seeing Mary happy just made me so happy. Their first kiss, her in that green dress, when he dropped her off in the car - I JUST LOVED THEM. Seeing her parents, Jeanne and Gio’s story really gave them so much depth and allowed for them to be humans and people instead of these caricature immigrant parent characters. You really got to understand the way they were now and the things they had gone through.Reading from their perspectives and their love story was lovely and I love them so much and just wanted to protect them. im so happy and relieved that Mary got to live the life she wanted to and have the love she wanted and a career of her own, just ugghh so happy for her and mostly just pleased that the author didn't give me a devastating ending.

Thank you to Netgalley and Colby Cedar smith for the eArc and the opportunity to read this lovely story.

#CallMeAthena #NetGalley

Thanks NetGalley and Andrews McMell Audio for the ALC.
Mary, Gio and Jeanne. Three people from three different places during World War I. Their interwoven stories are narrated by multiple narrators in this audiobook.
Call Me Athena. The story was not upto the mark like its name. There were descriptions of war, great depression, hunger strikes immigration, gender inequality etc. They were informative but not so moving. Even the characters didn't leave a lasting impression.
Overall, it was an average historical fiction.

Detroit. Greece. France. How do the stories of people from each of these countries intertwin? What do Ford, fishing ships and hospitals by the seas have in common?

Colby Cedar Smith’s novel weaves it together in a tapestry that includes Greek mythology, World War II and Henry Ford’s combusting and re-melding of Detroit. Smith’s novel is written in verse, and initially, I wasn’t sure how I would take to it. It didn’t work as well for me in audiobook format, which is what I started with, but when I read the book, my brain was able to form a cadence for the verse.

So many of Smith’s lines lifted off of the page and the imagery was rich. I enjoyed learning about Detroit during the Great Depression and how Ford both made and broke people in the city. I made mental notes to look up several of the events mentioned, as well as Diego Rivera’s exhibit that is mentioned in the book.

I enjoyed reading the author’s note at the end about her inspiration for writing the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for the Advanced Reader’s Copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was a fun and short audiobook that I quite enjoyed listening to! I managed to get through it in one sitting! Call Me Athena: Girl from Detroit follows three different narratives around Mary, the daughter of immigrants who moved to America. They want her to be a "Good Greek Girl" and mary a rich man in order to take care of herself and the family. However, that's absolutely not what Mary wants for herself and so we follow her path to finding her place in the world.

The different perspectives give this book a great energy, even though I sometimes found it a little bit hard to follow the story and the different characters (with audiobooks I just have a problem with my attention span, so sometimes I drift off and miss some small things). The narrators did a great job and I enjoyed listening to them talk!

Even though the characters go through a lot of hardship and some sad events, this book has a joyful feel about it and I would gladly listen to it again!

Call me Athena is about a young girls struggle to find herself, be herself and understand her past. Mary is from a Greek family who wants to marry her off and have her behave like a nice Greek girl. Mary has other plans.

I both listened and read this book and preferred the reading. The audio was a tad dramatic and over the top for me. I also liked seeing the interspersed letters in the text.

I selected this book because of the cover which is beautiful and I’ve been on a YA jag lately,

It was nice to hear a new perspective and would be interested to hear more from this author.

Thanks to #netGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

3.5 stars

First, a disclaimer: I received this audiobook in advance of publication in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own opinions. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this book.

This is a novel in verse that is historical fiction based on the author’s own family history. The page count on this is high, but the audio is not very long. I think that because it is written in verse, it may read more quickly than books written in prose with similar page counts. I felt like this was an ideal book to listen to on audio though. It is beautiful and heartwarming.

Mary is a sixteen-year-old child of Greek immigrants, growing up in the Depression era in Detroit and trying to understand why her parents came to America only to hold on to their own customs and ways. She yearns for freedom. She discovers letters in the cellar that tell her own parents’ story. Each piece of this story comes together beautifully, and the telling is just gorgeous. I definitely want to read more novels and verse and will also be looking to read more from this author.

CAWPILE Score: 63
Star Rating: 5

Call Me Athena: Girl from Detroit by Colby Cedar Smith
Publication Date: August 17, 2021
Narrated by: Gail Shalan; Hope Newhouse; Ramiz Monsef
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Thank you to @netgalley @andrewmcmeel for the ALC in return for my honest review.
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My thoughts…
Digging it! So, my first book for August. AND, my first novel in verse! Who am I? I’m still finding out new ways to enjoy books. How amazing is that? This was actually loosely based on the author’s maternal grandmother. Set in the 1930s, the story was about Mary and her family who emigrated from Greece to Detroit. There were two timelines, one during Mary’s time and the other were about her parents’ childhood in Greece and France. I just enjoyed how Mary and her parents’ young lives paralleled each other, and how the timelines captured the different yet similar perspectives between the characters. I’m glad I listened to it on audiobook because, the narrators read the verses beautifully. I became immersed in the story. I appreciated how the sacrifices to emigrate, the Great Depression, riots and hunger strikes were portrayed so well. A book about equality, cultural identity and struggle for independence as a woman.

*Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for a review*

This book was incredible. The characters were so realistic and amazing. The writing was lyrical and beautiful. Everything about this book screamed amazing!

TW: Arranged marriages, cultural racism, violence

*****SPOILERS*****
About the book: Mary lives in a tiny apartment with her immigrant parents, her brothers, and her twin sister, and she questions why her parents ever came to America. She yearns for true love, to own her own business, and to be an independent, modern American woman—much to the chagrin of her parents, who want her to be a “good Greek girl.”

Mary’s story is peppered with flashbacks to her parents’ childhoods in Greece and northern France; their stories connect with Mary as they address issues of arranged marriage, learning about independence, and yearning to grow beyond one’s own culture. Though Call Me Athena is written from the perspective of three profoundly different narrators, it has a wide-reaching message: It takes courage to fight for tradition and heritage, as well as freedom, love, and equality.
Release Date: August 17th
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 546
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

What I Liked:
• The novel was very moving
• The story flowed
• The writing was very interesting

What I Didn't Like:
• The many times I had to hear “I am Athena”.
• It felt a little bit rushed at times

Overall Thoughts: Fun fact; I live in Northeast Ohio, which has a huge Greek community. It was interesting to see the history of the Greek over the generations in this book. Mary was an easy character to love. You travel with her as she deals with being forced into a marriage so she’ll bring money to her family and security to her life. That’s not what Mary wants of course. She wants love and a choice.

I loved the changes of timelines as we move along into the different decades. It’s easy to understand all that Mary wants but as you listen to Mary’s parents you can see that they were searching for their own freedoms too.

Final Thoughts: This book really can show you how each generation doesn’t think the one before could ever understand where they’re coming from. I love that we get to travel this path with the author. I adored that this was based on the authors own grandparents.

Thanks to Netgalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for this advanced copy. All thoughts and views of this book are my own.

“Grief consumes like a brush fire. It begins with a glowing cinder. You think you can smother with your boot, as you tap and kick and stomp, it spreads across the grass. Once the spark grows, it has a will of its own”

So, I recently came to know the main character is named Mary and now Marie. Cool. I’m okay. I was reading the audiobook version, what did you expect?

I will get straight to the point. I didn’t like this book. I didn’t understand anything out of it except that there is a main character called Marie—no wait its Mary and something related to marriage and letters. I was hoping that it might get better and everything will start to make sense but here’s the truth. It doesn’t get better. It never does. I feel sick of myself for not liking this book but I can’t help it. The narration in the audiobook didn’t appeal to me and I felt so distant.

What I know in this book:
~There is a character named Mary
~There are some letters, marriage and war stuff involved.
~Mary is Greek!

Yay! That’s it! Man! I was so excited when ‘greek’ was mentioned in the descriptive but I couldn’t be more disappointed. The parents force ‘Mary’ to marry someone she doesn’t like or something? I don’t know. At one point, I was just skipping it.

I am sorry I cant write a much bigger review than this because there was literally nothing to talk about and I don’t know how the plot was carried on in the story. The digital editions might have been really good but the audiobook was just eh.

Audiobook Comments:
I would definitely absolutely surely not recommend this to anyone. You can go for the physical copies but please stay away from the audiobook. The narration just didn’t stay up to the mark. It could have been done better.

I have a strong belief that the author might be really good but I just didn’t like it. Sorry not sorry.

I think I'm a little bit broken by this book. I wasn't even going to request it at first, but there was something about the cover that drew me in. And I have no regrets. It's the first novel in verse I have tried for a long time, and honestly I don't know why I was hesitant. It was marvellous: heart-breaking and heart-warming all at once.

Call Me Athena was beautifully written and the narration on the audiobook truly did it justice. I loved the performances, and I thought it flowed really well.

The split timeline had me so invested in the characters and the difference in their situations. Call Me Athena isn't afraid to take a close look at poverty and the disparity between rich and poor.

Format: audiobook
Author: Colby Cedar Smith ~ Title: Call Me Athena ~ Narrators: Gail Shalan; Hope Newhouse; Ramiz Monsef
Content: 5 stars ~ Narration: 5 stars

At first, I was skeptical about this novel in verse. Because with those, it’s not always what you expect it to be. But this elegant and deeply touching novel surprised me. Despite this is a full novel in verse, it still feels lightweight, it is easy to understand, and the language remains beautiful.

Three people, three stories, each different. Call Me Athena is a story about immigration, love, and coming-of-age. It is a story of Mary, her Greek father Gio, and French mother Jeanne. The story spans from 1915 to 1934 and describes two quite different time periods: First World War in Europe and the Great Depression in America.

I listened to the audio version and read the ebook at the same time. Which one to choose depends on the reader. I liked both versions, but the audiobook was so much more. Three great narrators added a lot to the story with their beautifully accented narration. In the end, I would recommend both versions, depends on what you like. But getting both versions would also be an excellent choice.

Thanks to the Andrews McMeel Audio for the ARC and the opportunity to listen to this! All opinions are my own.

I'd like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced listener copy of this book. Unbiased review - full speed ahead.

This book is written in verse, which could mean that the audio version would face potential shortcomings as a result. For me, I think the audio version translated the lyrical beauty of her poetry perfectly. I could hear the rhythm and the movement of the patterns, almost as if I could see the poems in my head.

As for the story itself, it's incredibly touching. A moving tale based on the author's family history. Finding that fact out, in the end, made it all the more powerful, to know that these people were real. I also felt that the dual storyline taken from two different time periods really worked for this book. Usually, I find that when a novel has a dual storyline, one suffers greatly and is way less interesting. That is not the case with "Call Me Athena". (Granted, Mary was my favorite character, but I am drawn to girls who don't always follow the rules.) Both the timelines - that of Mary and that of her parents, were equally interesting to me. I loved hearing how the romance between the parents developed and how Mary's story unfolded.

This book was truly a pleasant surprise all around.

Thank you to @netgalley @andrewsmcmeel for my free audio download of Call Me Athena by Colby Ceder Smith : This wouldn’t of been a book I would of chosen but i enjoyed it anyway. This book gave me vibes of The Letter and Anne Frank. The book follows Mary a American born daughter of Greek and French Immigrants living in 1930’s Detroit during the Great Depression, Hunger strikes and riots. Mary’s father wants her to have a arranged marriage like a good Greek girl but Mary born in Detroit wants more, a business of her own a husband she loves and a life she chooses. The book is written from three narratives her Mother a French immigrant and her Father a Greek immigrant. Mary finds letters that tell the story of her parents in 1917 during war time, how they met and how they came to America. It’s a story of a young girl growing up in family tradition and heritage, freedom and love in tough times. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ from me.

So, the other day I was scrolling through NetGalley for auto-approved Audiobooks and I came across this one and I'm so glad I did.

Call Me Athena: Girl from Detroit by Colby Cedar Smith is written in the form of verses and is based on the author's parental grandmother's life.

The book follows the story of three different characters whose lives are intertwined in one way or another.

The story beautifully captures the essence of hardships of life, the struggle to achieve freedom whilst staying true to your roots in a tender way and even then it doesn't shy away from sharing the brutal realities of the great depression, what's it like to be an immigrant, and how war affects people.

The desire to live a life with freedom takes the kind of courage that most people don't have and that's exactly what the message of this book is.

I especially loved the flashbacks Mary's story is prepped with.

I fell in love with this book overall too. It is just beautiful written with a flowery prose that never withers away.

The story is heartwarming and leaves you with a bittersweet ache in your heart. I'd definitely recommend it to everyone.

4 stars

This was such a beautiful story from start to finish.
The fact that the author managed to read this story IN VERSE in such a heartwarming way... it blows my mind.
I don't usually read historical fiction but this was so amazingly done I wanna start doing it again.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to listened to this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I've had a lot of problems in recent years with the Instagram poetry style that really just seemed like prose with extra line breaks, but I think this book shows a place where it will work: a verse novel, told in moments and flashbacks and feelings, where the poetic style actually adds to the narrative through emphasis and creating pauses to feel the impact of the plot points and the theme. So I honestly liked this; the story was pretty straightforwardly about family and gender roles and love and immigration, but I liked the different perspectives of the different generations and having the story set against World War 1 in Greece and France and the Great Depression in Detroit made the conflicts ad challenges the characters faced so much more dramatic and impactful. Fun novel and a quick, interesting read, and the narrator did a great job with the emotion and voices..

I can't tell you how much I love this novel in verse. The audiobook was narrated very well by three narrators. The main character, Mary is a 16 year old in Detroit in the 1930's trying to find her strength, independence and voice. Told through the point of view of three characters (two of which are letters written back and forth between lovers around 1916-1918 ish) tackling immigration, war, depression-era struggles, this novel in verse is beautifully written. I was hooked from the beginning and enjoyed every minute.. only complaint is it had to end.

Call Me Athena by Colby Cedar Smith is a beautiful novel told in verse. The story is told from three different perspectives. Each character is beautifully crafted and unique in their own way. Their individual voices shone through the verses. I loved how Mary from Detroit in the 1930’s and Gio and Jeanne from World War I shared many parallels and ended up intertwined together in ways they never expected.

The three stories are beautifully crafted to portray a story of forbidden love, life as an immigrant, the effects of war, family dynamics, and gender expectations caused by cultural and societal pressures.

This story had me captivated from beginning to end. I loved seeing the story unfold and the pieces of the puzzle come together.

This was the first book I have read that is written in verse so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was lucky enough to receive both an e-book and an audio version. I found the audio book easier to listen to than reading the e-copy as I am not used to reading in verse.

After reading this book I found out that it is based on the author’s grandmother and great grandparents which made it all the more moving.

Thank you to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for a copy of Call Me Athena in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with the audiobook.

Call Me Athena: Girl From Detroit is the debut novel of Colby Cedar Smith. It follows three people whose lives are all connected. It handles themes of war, poverty, misogyny, familial expectations, immigration and more.

This book was beautifully written. It's written in verse and even though I have not read a lot of books in verse, I got through this really quickly and I absolutely loved the writing style. It was descriptive and emotional and really captivating.

The characters were very easy to root for, although I do think they could've been a bit more developed. My favourite was Mary. Throughout the book she struggles to choose her own destiny as the daughter of a Greek immigrant, and I think her story was very inspiring.

I definitely recommend this book if you want to read some historical fiction with beautiful writing.