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.