This was a truly terrible book, but I feel so bad giving it such a low rating. It's like I just kicked a puppy. A really stupid puppy that's wet my bed for the 47th time, but still...kicking a puppy. 
 I've read a lot of unrealistic heroines in my day, but Kate tops the list. She's not all that terrible: I'll give her some points. She is kind, caring, with a soft spot bigger and more tender than a newborn's head. The first sentence of the story gives us a preview of her character: 
 "I spent my eighteenth birthday driving from New York City to Eden, Michigan, so my mother could die in the town where she was born."Kate's had a tough life. No father, and her mother has been terminally ill from cancer for the last four years. She's known suffering, and she is kind, compassionate, and caring; she will forgive just about anything. Kate is endlessly supportive, endlessly optimistic, even while she's scared that she'll fail and let everyone down. She just doesn't give up. If I wanted to read about saints, I'd go read the Bible. Enough with the martyrdom already. The key to writing a good character is for them to have flaws. Believable flaws. Kate's flaws aren't so much flaws as they are embellishments of her oh-so-perfect personality. Even her flaws are good ones. 
 It's like going to a job interview. When the interviewer asks "What is your biggest weakness?" If you say "I'm just too dedicated to my job, I'm too hardworking!" the interviewer is just going to internally laugh their ass off, because that's just not a believable fault. That sums up my feelings about Kate. She's just too perfect to be a good, believable character. 
 Her friendship with Ava...now, that pissed me off. I didn't feel like Ava added anything to the story besides making Kate look good in comparison. Ava's existence seems to serve the purpose of highlighting Kate's good nature and willingness to forgive. So in the beginning, Ava fakes friendship, only to abandon Kate with no choice but to cross a river, knowing full well she is afraid of water. Despite the cruel trick, Kate becomes her best friend anyway, no matter what kind of idiocy Ava gets herself into. 
 "...you're the reason it happened." I stopped in front of the bed, running my fingers through my hair. "Ella wants you gone. Frankly, if all you're going to do is waste your time sleeping with every guy in the manor and acting like the world revolves around you, then so do I. You're useless here." 
 Ava becomes the shamed slut, and Kate the wrathful, righteous angel who puts down Ava the sinner in her proper place. There is very thinly veiled slut-shaming here. 
 Kate assumes fault for everything. Someone dies? It's her fault. She saves someone's life, only to have them die again? Her fault. "No one else should have to die because of me." Because of me. Because of me. That phrase is repeated by Kate throughout the book and I became sick of it. You're not a serial killer, Kate. Nobody died because of you. Stop assuming fault for everything bad that happens! Even if something is clearly not her fault, it's still her fault because she trusted the wrong person...honestly. 
 Regardless, she is so sympathetic, which is why I feel like I'm kicking a helpless animal every time I criticize her character. I mean, how can you not feel for her after reading this: 
 "I'm not her, Henry. I can't be her, and I can't spend eternity trying to live up to your memory of her. I'm nobody to you right now, I get that...I get that I'm not her and won't ever be. I don't want to be her anyway, not with how badly she's hurt you. But if this works--if I pass, I need to know that when you look at me, you're going to see me, not just her replacement. That there's more in this future for me than standing in the shadows while you wallow the rest of your existence away."It's like Meredith's "Love me" speech in Grey's Anatomy. It sucks to know that you're a replacement. 
 The other female characters in the book seems also to serve the purpose of highlighting Kate's godliness. They fight. All. The. Time. Screeching, yelling at each other, everything short of hair-pulling. I am so sick of the trend that only one single female character can be truly good, and all other females in the story serve as bitchy foils, be they friends of the main character or not. 
 Henry himself didn't register on my radar much. He spends the majority of his time moping about and being depressed, despondent, and feeling hopeless. I can't imagine he's any use as a god, he doesn't seem capable of anything besides pouting and sulking. 
 The plot itself is absurd. The land of the dead, in Michigan. Random residents of town are inhabitants of Henry's little kingdom. The pantheon of gods, which includes Zeus, Apollo, etc...and Henry. Somehow, my copy of Bullfinch's Mythology made the glaring error of omitting Henry from its list of inhabitants of Zeus' marbled halls. This is one instance when things would have gone better unexplained...the book gives an justification for everything, which only served to add to the preposterousness, and everyone seems to accept everything ridiculous that happens without any sense of disbelief. 
 What I thought was the major plotline, the tests, were weakly glossed over. They seemed to be put together in a rush when the author realized she completely forgot the major plotline, and I didn't find the result any more credible than the rest of the book and its characters.