The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan – Book Review

Rating: 4.5/5

Genre: Middle grade, fantasy, mythology

First published: 2009

Author: Rick Riordan

***SPOILER ALERT*** This is not the first book in the series, so the synopsis and this review may contain spoilers for previous books.

Synopsis: The half-bloods have been preparing all year for the final battle with Kronos. The battle that will decide the fate of the Olympians and along with them, that of western civilization, and things do not look promising. Not only are they hopelessly outnumbered, Typhon, one of the gods biggest enemies (literally), is advancing on New York City. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Percy’s sixteenth birthday is fast approaching and with it comes the prophecy that has governed his life for the past five years. 

Book Depository | Goodreads

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I finally finished this series! It’s taken me over a year, but I did it and I feel so relieved to have finished a series. Normally, I feel sad when I finish a series, but I know that I don’t have to say goodbye to these characters just yet, so I just feel happy that I managed to cross a series off my list. Anyway, getting to the actual review.

I wasn’t sure how to rate it. I wanted to give it 4 stars, but I really liked how to prophecy played out at the end, so for that reason alone I gave it 4.5 stars. There were parts in the book that I found a little boring. Of course, I still really enjoyed the book, but I felt like, as a series finale, it was a little bit disappointing.

The characters are older now, Percy is turning 16 and the long awaited prophecy is finally revealed. I liked how it played out. I liked what Percy’s decision turned out to be and I liked how some aspects of the prophecy that we didn’t hear until the beginning of this book, played out differently than what you’d expect.

One of the things that makes this series so good and unique and makes it seem so witty is that it takes things very literally. So much so, that sometimes it conflicts with how we normally think and that makes it both funny and always seem somehow unexpected. One of the ways in which it does this is by the chapter titles. When I start a new Percy Jackson book, I always read the list of chapter titles and then try to imagine what that chapter is about. 9 times out of 10, I’m wrong. Even though if you’ve read any of the PJ books, you know that the chapter titles tell you more or less the essential event of the chapter. In that respect, this one did not disappoint.

For the most part, everything tied up neatly at the end. There are a few loose ends, but I’m guessing those are going to be explored in Heroes of Olympus, so I’m not too bothered by them. As usual, it was funny, it was very clever in its use of mythology and I can’t wait to continue on with Heroes of Olympus.

This was a very short review. I don’t really have that much to say about it without going into details. But since I want this review to be spoiler free, I can’t do that. So I will have to stop here.