The final Heroes of Olympus book is out and needless to say there was a lot of excitement.
Was it
everything we’d hoped for? Was it a major flop? Well I’ll give you my thoughts
on the book.
Summary
It’s an
intense race against time as a group of young Demigods struggle to stop
the awakening of the ancient god Gaea. Percy, Annabeth, Frank, Piper, Jason,
Leo and Hazel travel to Greece to try and stop the rising of Gaea, while Nico,
Reyna and Coach Hedge transport the Athena Parthenos statue to Camp half-blood
to make peace with the warring Greeks and the Romans, all before The Roman feast day on
August 1st when The Romans will destroy the Greeks and Gaea shall destroy the world. Along the way they meet old and new characters, face ghosts from
their past, learn about the state of the gods and try to fulfill the great
prophecy whilst keeping each other safe.
Writing
Style
The book is
written through a series of the different characters' p.o.v’s(point of view). Each p.o.v is written
in a third person omniscient style and this allows us to better understand what
each character feels, their motivations and their history. The transitions from
one point of view to the next are smooth, and easy to follow, where as in some
of Riordan’s other work (cough Kane chronicles Cough) it’s seemed a bit clunky. The book’s style is a blend of
action, adventure, mythology and comedy. The characters are all teenagers and talk and act as such which is why it's easy for our age group to understand and relate to them. All the character have unique and identifiable traits, so you never feel like your just reading the same point of view. It's like the most exciting road and these are definitely the characters you want to ride along with.This is mostly meant to be a
lighthearted adventure with some intense bits skillfully strewn in. Although,
it is worth noting that, being a finale, this particular book plays up a bit
more of the intensity and severity of the situation.
New
Vocabulary
A lot of the
vocabulary in this book includes old Roman and Greek words as well as other
terms. Here is some of the interesting vocabulary I learned
Repellere equites- Latin for repel horsemen: a square formation used by roman soldiers to fend from
horseback warriors.
Retiarus- A Roman gladiator that
fights with a net and trident.
Ponifex maximus- Roman high priest
Makhai- spirits of battle and combat.
Demigod- An offspring of a God and a mortal. Has all human vulnerabilities, but obtains powers from their godly parent.
Evaluating
effectiveness
For the
rules in place, considering Gods, demigods and how they fit in today’s society,
I’d say book is fairy believable. I mean that in a sense that, I never feel
like what I’m reading is too stupid to ever work, or too out there to ever make
sense. It’s always stays within in its established rules and any new rules
never ruin the story. It’s quite engaging, having great characters, great
action a very fluent story and a pace that keeps you interested but not
overwhelmed. Since the character are very fun, interesting and relatable it helps the reader to stay invested even when the p.o.v is shifting.
Evaluate Bias
Now I will
admit to being fairly biased. I am a huge Percy Jackson and practically read
every mythological Rick Riordan book. So that’s probably a strong contributing
factor to my love of this book. I'm also just a big fan of Mythology in general and there's plenty of it present in the novel. If you have no interest in Percy Jackson or
want to see a really serious and dramatic approach Greek mythology, you probably
won’t like this book. As for bias
present on the author, I can't really see any bias that wasn't intentionally created for the characters.
Final
Thoughts and Rating
Overall the
blood of Olympus is a fantastic book filled with all the action adventure and
drama you’d want. Though, that may be the book’s fatal flaw. If you’ve read Percy
Jackson, or if you’re even the least bit familiar with the action/adventure genre,
a lot of these plot points are very predictable and you can predict what’s
going to happen from nearly, the moment events start to play out. On the one
hand it’s everything I wanted but at the same time there’s no big surprises,
nothing that blew my mind or I couldn’t see coming. Perhaps I could just be used to the author's style, but I felt this book lacked the payoff that was displayed in some of Rick Riordan's finale's like The Last Olympian, the last book in the original Percy Jackson series.
But aside from that there’s tons of good. We really get to
see progression in all of the main characters, even the characters who started of as either bland or annoying like piper and Jason.All story arcs come to close for
now, with some cliffhangers for future books. We get lots more interesting mythology, and see characters we haven’t seen in a while.
The action as I’ve said is really good and it’s just a really fun, epic adventure. So only due to its predictability I still award The Blood Olympus with a solid 4.5/5
but in the end it still gave me what I wanted and didn’t disappoint, just didn't blow me away like I'd hoped. I definitely
recommend this book to Heroes of Olympus fans as it’s a fitting end to the series, I'd also recommend the the entire Heroes of Olympus series for Percy Jackson fans or for Mythology fans in general.
Elijah Mourillon
Amateur Critic
Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson, Heroes of Olympus or
any of Rick Riordan’s work. The use of names and Images is for review purposes
only and not for personal gain. All terms definitions were found in The Blood of
Olympus Glossary and images from Google images.
