Review of Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan

Review of Percy Jackson and the Olympians: 

the Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan

    So, going into this book I did not remember anything. I had got the beginning with the Hunters of Artemis confused with the ending when Thalia decides to join. I did not remember Bianca and Zoe Nightshade, and I thought Nico was introduced in the 4^th book. I did remember the scene at the Hoover Dam, but I thought it was with Annabeth in the second book. So, the story of this book was a big surprise to me reading it this time around. It was a lot of fun going into this book not knowing what to expect. I think this book is structured narratively, more like the first book, where we get thrown into a situation, then meet up at Camp Half-Blood, get the quest from the Oracle, and then the group goes on a mission. It’s a mystery as to who the General is, just like we didn't know who the lightning thief was, and then we end back at Mt. Olympus. 

Now, the second book also had a trio go on a quest but it was structured differently, and I mentioned felt rushed. This book didn’t feel rushed, but I will say they go to too many locations. We could have dropped the ski resort town, and just moved Grover communicating with Pan to a different location. I kind of also think it was a missed opportunity for Percy, the son of Poseidon, to go to the Hoover Dam, and not use his water powers. That could have been fun and cool, because I like to see Percy use his powers in different ways and situations. 

The other thing I liked was the slow reveal of the new prophecy by the oracle. One shall be lost in the land without water, ended up being Bianca, the titan’s curse one must withstand, was Percy needing to hold the sky up, and one that should perish by a parents hand, was Zoe, and all along the way, Thalia and Percy kept suspecting that their father’s might try to kill them. So, it’s great the way the prophecy plays out. I like having Grover back, and seeing how he’s changed since the first book. He’s more confident in his skills as a satyr, and he continues to follow his dream of finding Pan, and while he is still the fun Grover, he’s not used as much as a comedic relief character. I like the relationship between Percy and Thalia, being kind of competitive with each other, but also learning to respect each other, similar to Percy and Annabeth in the first book. Thalia is a strong female character but very different from Annabeth and Clarisse. I’m a bit sad to see he go off with the Hunters at the end of the book. Zoe Nightshade and Bianca were also cool female characters, that we unfortunately let go in this book. 

Like Grover in the last book, we don’t get much Annabeth in this one, but what we do get is great, and I like getting to meet her father and step-mother. We get a little bit more of Luke being the villain in this, and his almost desperation to have Thalia and Annabeth at his side. I still don’t care about Luke being a villain and whether or not he should be redeemed. I’m with Percy on this, let Luke die. While I vaguely remembered there was an ophiotaurus, I think I got it confused with the Hippocampi from the last book. But I like Bessie the ophiotaurus because it brings out a soft side of Percy that reminds us why he is the protagonist and hero of the series. When all the Olympians wanted to kill Bessie just to stop the prophecy, Percy says it’s wrong to kill an innocent creature. So, I like the introduction and mystery of Bessie in this. We don’t get a lot of Chiron, which is honestly something that has surprised me in these books, because I remembered him as being a bigger mentor figure for Percy. We do get a nice scene of Dionysus helping Percy in San Francisco, but he is still not someone that likes Percy.    

By the end of the book, we also learn that Nico is the son of Hades and that he runs away, so I’m looking forward to seeing how this plays out, and I think we might find out who got Nico and Bianca out of the Lotus Hotel, probably as another way to try to control the prophecy. Thalia removed herself from the prophecy by joining the hunters, so she’ll never turn 16, and Percy is only 2 years away from his 16^th birthday. But Nico is like 10 so he’s 6 years away, and I don’t think Luke and Kronos are going to wait that long, so I still think that the prophecy about a child of the big three is about Percy, thus the series of books. 

So, I think that this book does a great job of following the standard quest storyline, but tying it in more to the overall story arc of the series. Whereas the first two books felt a little bit more like standalones, this book I think does a great job bridging the first two books and what’s to come in the next two books. Even though I didn’t remember the events of this book at all going in, I got to say I really enjoyed this book a lot. In contrast to me remembering that I loved Sea of Monsters and then read it again and it wasn’t as good. I don’t remember a lot about the next two books, so that is exciting to look forward to. 

So, that’s my review for The Titan’s Curse. Thank you all for reading the review, and stay tuned for the next book review, Battle of the Labyrinth. Be sure to let me know what you think about the book in the comments below.

Review of Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

Review of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: 

The Sea of Monsters” by Rick Riordan

Going into reading this book, I remembered it being my favorite of the series. After reading it, I do not think it will be my favorite of the series, I prefer the first book to Sea of Monsters. The second book is the shortest in the series, and I think it suffers from that. Many parts of this book feel rushed, and other parts that could have been rushed, the chariot race, weren’t. We didn’t get to spend enough time with Clarisse or Luke, even though they play crucial roles in this story. We mostly spend our time with Percy and Annabeth, which I love, because we see how their friendship has grown and how they’ve learned to open up and trust each other. Also, I do like Annabeth’s character arc of not liking Tyson because of her past interactions with cyclops, but then comes to realize that Tyson is different, and she gives him credit for helping on the quest. Percy also has a small arc with Tyson. First, he likes him as a friend when he thinks Tyson is human, then he’s ashamed of having a half-brother that’s a monster, and then realizes how much he cares about Tyson when he thinks Tyson is dead. Then in the end he proudly proclaims Tyson as his brother, and it’s kind of sweet, since Percy has been an only child his whole life.

However, with this book being so short, we don’t get the same character development from the other characters that we have spent less time with. I think Clarisse is an interesting character, being the daughter of Ares, and feeling his pressure to finish the quest, while also knowing that she DID need Percy’s help. But we don’t really get to know Clarisse, and how she feels. I would like to know more about Clarisse and why she feels this pressure to live up to her father’s expectations. I can’t remember how much Clarisse we get in the next books, but I think this is the most we get from her, and it’s a little disappointing. There’s also not a lot of Grover or Chiron in this book, the two characters that started off the series at the beginning of Lightning Thief. They were two characters that endeared us to the story. I feel like Grover is the heart and was kind of replaced by Tyson in this book. Chiron is the mentor figure that doesn’t get replaced in this book, so the role is just absent. The reveal of Chiron being the son of Cronus was mentioned and then never discussed after that. Which seems like it should be a big deal, but I don’t know if this will come back up again. Even Tyson comes off as just the simpleton, goofy, little brother, instead of an actual character. Luke has this whole plan to resurrect Cronus, but I think we only get two scenes with Luke in this book, and we need more of him, and him recruiting people to his cause in order to understand him as a villain, and root for him for some kind of redemption. At this point, I just don’t care about Luke, even though we did get to meet Hermes his father. I do like Hermes, he comes off as this fun, mail man business man type, and I like how he speaks to Percy. He doesn’t just treat him like a little kid or is dismissive with him, which is nice to see from one of the Gods, because Percy hasn’t really had any positive encounters with the gods, even Poseidon was a bit cold. I also like the two snakes on Hermes staff, they provide some good comedy.

Throughout the book, Percy and friends take on several new monsters. I like the opening dodgeball scene against the giant cannibals. However, I feel the other monsters were rushed. The new trio is barely camping out for a few minutes before they are attacked by a hydra, and then instantly dispose of it. I also like them going to Circe’s island, but again we don’t’ spend any time here. I wish they would have tied it in more with Circe in mythology. Then they encounter the sirens, and that does reveal Annabeth’s fears, giving us an insight into what’s bothering her, which is a great scene, since Percy learns about it, and it bonds them more as friends. But it’s still a pretty short scene. Then they go up against Polyphemus, a giant cyclops, and they manage to trick him fairly easily. Then in the end Percy has to fight Luke in sword combat, even that feels rushed, and I don’t feel the stakes. I don’t ever worry that Percy is in danger, and I don’t worry that Luke is actually going to kill Percy. I know these books are written for middle grade, but you can do that and still deliver compelling characters, action scenes and make the reader feel like the characters are in real danger.

What I do like is that this book continues the overall arc of the series, revealing the prophecy about a child of the big three, which is why Percy is so special in this world. And then the reveal at the end with Thalia, now Percy is not the only child of the big three. Also, the reveal of what really happened with Annabeth, Luke and Thalia, something that was hinted at in the first book, but we learn that they were attacked by a cyclops, and that Thalia sacrificed herself and turned into a tree, and now the golden fleece has cured her, and we get Thalia back. It’s a great way to tie these stories together. We also learn that the golden fleece can resurrect Cronus, and that is Luke’s plan. I’m still not sure how Luke’s plan in the Lightning Thief ties into his plan in this book. Was this his plan all along or did they need to change plans, after Luke failing at the end of The Lightning Thief?

So, overall, I still like this book, I just don’t love it the way I did when I first read it. Partially because that was over ten years ago, and I’ve learned as a writer, what goes into good characters and storytelling, so my metric for what I like when I read something, has gone up. I think about these stories more critically. I think when I first read this, I just liked that it was fast-paced and fun. Now that I’ve read the entire series, and I’m looking for more, the fast-paced nature is a hindrance, and we need more time spent on the new characters. We’ll see how I end up ranking these five books, maybe this will still be better than the last three, but I have a feeling that I will enjoy the next book "The Titan’s Curse", more than I did the first time I read.

Thanks you all for reading and please leave comment below about your thoughts on the book.