Review: The Gate Keeper's Sons by Eva Pohler

Image & Description from goodreads.com

Fifteen-year-old Therese watches her parents die. While in a coma, she meets the twin sons of Hades—Hypnos, the god of sleep, and Thanatos, the god of death. She thinks she's manipulating a dream, not kissing the god of death and totally rocking his world.

Than makes a deal with Hades and goes as a mortal to the Upperworld to try and win Therese's heart, but not all the gods are happy. Some give her gifts. Others try to kill her.

The deal requires Therese to avenge the death of her parents. With the help of Than’s fierce and exotic sisters, the Furies, she finds herself in an arena face to face with the murderer, and only one will survive. 

My Thoughts:
I liked the idea of this story very much.  The characters for the most part were likable.  However, they lacked depth & complexity.  They were naive.  Not to mention, Than is supposed to be a God who's centuries old.  He should have been wiser & more mature.  Therese was extremely immature for her age.  The life changing events she experienced would have caused her to grow up or at least made her more cautious.  The little side stories about her friends, especially Jen & Vicki, were under developed.  Both experienced some serious things that were barely touched on.  It seems like those stories could have been expanded on instead of the fluff about the appearance of Mt. Olympus and other inconsequential nonsense.  The thing that I disliked the most was how easily things popped up to help Therese.  You need to be able to travel like the Gods?  Ok, here's a magical robe.  It was like watching the Magic Unicorn Rainbow show where everything the hero or heroin needs is there tied up in a neat little bow.  It became far too clear that this was the way the author was going about moving the story along instead of letting her characters work & struggle to build, well, CHARACTER.  
Now here's the saving grace of the story.  I liked the idea enough that I'll read the next book.  Because I do think that there is room for improvement & the story has real promise.

I bought this book & reviewed it without any compensation from the author or a publisher.
Recommended for ages 12& up. 
No sexual content.  Mild language & violence.