I have loved Greek and Roman myths since I was a child, when I discovered a copy of Edith Hamilton's Mythology among my father's books. Over the next few years I devoured many different versions of the tales, from Homer, Virgil and Ovid to Robert Graves and Bullfinch. It's been a while since I've revisited the myths, so I was eager to receive a review copy of Greek Mythology: Gods & Heroes Brought to Life by Robert Garland.

His interpretation of the stories is different, no question about it. But is it good?

Well, that's going to depend on the person reading it, I guess. Personally, I can't say I enjoyed it.

Garland's gimmick here is to give various gods and heroes a few pages each to tell their stories "in their own words." In about 200 pages, readers hear from Gaia, Zeus, Artemis, Orion, Apollo, Hermes, Perseus, Bellerophon, Pan, Dionysus, Ariadne, Persephone, Heracles, Prometheus, Jason, Atalanta, Orestes, Oedipus, Ismene, Polyphemus, Odysseus, Nausikaa, Odysseus (again), Penelope, Telemachus, Eurycleia, Neoptolemus, Achilles, Thetis, Hera, Antilochus, Achilles, Priam, Cassandra, Aphrodite, Psyche, Helen and Plato.

Each gets from two to a dozen or so pages to relate their place in mythology. In many cases, the details are sparse to nonexistent; I'm not sure someone who isn't already familiar with the stories will come away with an understanding of them. The order also is cockeyed; Odysseus, for instance, tells us about his 10-year journey home from Troy before we read anything about the Trojan War itself.

Garland doesn't try to create an air of magic or mystery around his characters. They speak like someone you'd meet in a bar. For example, when Aphrodite relates the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe, she expresses Pyramus's frustration with their separation thusly: "This sucks. Let's meet outside the city at Ninus' tomb and have some fun." That hardly sounds like the seeds that inspired Shakespeare to write Romeo & Juliet. Later, we meet Psyche, who is married to the god Cupid without knowing who he is. She introduces herself like this:

It's not my fault if I'm drop dead gorgeous. I have golden ringlets, pearly white teeth, breasts like ripe melons, skin the colour of ivory, a tinkling laugh, and hips that rotate wildly. You name it, I've got it. It's not been an easy life. Men couldn't handle me. My beauty intimidated them. What a bunch of wimps.

Homer, Garland is not.

When she wakes in Cupid's palace to the god's touch in the darkness, she says: "Though I couldn't see my companion, I guessed right away that he must be a god. I debated whether to resist him, but in the end, what the heck, I thought, and let nature takes [sic] its course."

Garland makes much of the fact -- and he's absolutely right -- that there's a lot of room for interpretation in the genre. As he notes on the back cover of the book:

Greek mythology isn't the equivalent of the Bible or the Qur'an. There is no standardized version of any myth. Myths aren't sacred. Whether you happen to be Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides or any other Greek, or even you or me, every myth is yours to tell and interpret any way you like.

Among the problems, however, is that all of his characters sound the same -- they all have pretty much the same narrative voice, use the same slang, employ the same snarky sarcasm in their dialogue -- and he didn't convey any of the stories' richness or wonder. It's just of people with funny Greek names making vague references to their part in timeless lore. Usually, a good book of legends will transport me; this one mostly left me bored.

The book isn't helped by Garland's illustrations, which are dark and childish.