Rating: 3/5 stars
Genre: Fantasy, YA
First published: 2010
Author: Rick Riordan
Synopsis: When Jason, Piper and Leo crash land at Camp Half-Blood, they have no idea what to expect. Apparently this is the only safe place for children of the Greek Gods – despite the monsters roaming the woods and demigods practising archery with flaming arrows and explosives. But rumours of a terrible curse – and a missing hero – are flying around camp. It seems Jason, Piper and Leo are the chosen ones to embark on a terrifying new quest, which they must complete by the winter solstice. In just four days time. Can the trio succeed on this deadly mission – and what must they sacrifice in order to survive?
***SPOILER ALERT*** There may be minor spoilers for the Percy Jackson series ahead.
This is by far my least favourite Rick Riordan book that I have read to date. I mean… it’s still good, but by Rick Riordan standards, it’s just meh.
I know for a lot of people, this book is meh because all the beloved Percy Jackson characters they’ve grown attached to over the course of 5 books are now suddenly minor side-characters. But I knew that going into this book, so that wasn’t it for me. I liked the new characters as much as I liked the old. Maybe even more, if I’m being honest. I never had the huge love of Percy that so many of the series’ fans seem to hold. I like him, but I don’t love him. I actually liked Jason more than Percy and Piper more than Annabeth and Leo more than Grover. And I loved Coach Hedge. He was hilarious.
I’m actually not sure what the main issue for me was. Maybe the story? But no, it was pretty much like all Rick Riordan stories. Crazy, funny, full of action and mythology. The plot was nicely woven with the previous books and the rest of the series was nicely set up. The writing was as good as ever, so that can’t be it either. Looking at the individual parts of this book, I can’t really find fault with them. But put together, they just didn’t work as well as they usually do. I don’t know why. It’s kind of like a drawing of a face where if you look at each individual part of the face, it’s great, but when you look at the whole thing, something just looks askew.
Overall, I found the book to be a bit boring, though there were plenty of things going on. Maybe it was something to do with the pacing. It just felt like things were happening off beat. All the notes were there, but they were played at the wrong time. The whole book just felt a little off. I am looking forward to reading the rest of the series though, and hopefully this won’t be an issue that I have with all the books.
This is a rather short review, but I don’t have much to say about it. I can’t really put my finger on what I disliked, but I disliked something about it. Still, this is a Rick Riordan book, so it’s by no means bad. Just worse than the rest of them.
A Book Nerd 