Review of "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Chalice of the Gods" by Rick Riordan

Review of Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Chalice of the Gods - By Rick Riordan

Rick Riordan’s The Chalice of the Gods marks a nostalgic return to a Percy Jackson proper book. This novel, set after the original five-book series, follows Percy during his senior year of high school and sets up a new trilogy of books. The setup is that to get into the same university as Annabeth, Percy must earn three letters of recommendation from a god. First quest is retrieving Ganymede’s chalice, because the cup bearer must have it before Zeus requests his presence on Olympus.

While I was really looking forward to reading a new adventure with Percy, Annabeth and Grover, this was a bit of a miss for me. Although I like the catalyst for a new trilogy of books – Percy needs letters of recommendations – the problem is the quests have low stakes. Instead of feeling like an epic continuation to the original five books, Chalice of the Gods feels more like a side quest. Similar to a chapter out the The Demigod Files book.

The mystery of who stole Ganymede’s chalice isn’t that exciting and the reveal is underwhelming. At no point do I feel like Percy is in any real danger, and there’s no stakes if he fails the quest. There’s no emotional attachment to the outcome and resolution to Percy succeeding. That’s the biggest problem that I have with this book, because otherwise I enjoy catching up with familiar characters. A minor complaint is the book doesn’t take place or even mention Camp Half Blood which was a cornerstone of the original books.

On to what I enjoyed. I really liked catching up with Percy in his senior year at a new high school. We get a lot of scenes of Percy living at home with his mom, Sally, and stepdad Paul. I love seeing the day-to-day life and building relationships between characters. We also get to see Percy and Annabeth as boyfriend-girlfriend, which is sweet, but at times annoying how much he refers to her as his girlfriend. Also, Annabeth feels a bit different from the original books, but that could be because she has matured. Grover is still Grover and we get some mentions of his girlfriend Juniper. It’s honestly just really nice to be back with the trio on a new adventure.

As for new characters, we meet a few new gods and one new demigod. We meet Ganymede the cup bearer to the gods, Iris the messenger goddess, Ellison a river god and Gary the god of old age. The new gods are fine and of course have heard of Percy. But it don’t have any real effect on the overall Percy Jackson universe. We’ll see if they appear in future books. Iris seems like she could be an interesting god and foil for the trio going forward. Similar to Hera or Aphrodite in the original series. Blanche is the demigod daughter of Iris and we only get a brief meeting with her. She’s into photography and is, as Grover describes her, so cool’. I wish we got more with Blanche, she seems like she could be an interesting new demigod, with her mellow/earthy vibes. Maybe she’ll return in another book.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book as a side quest adventure but wish that it had stakes with real consequences. I love returning to this world and seeing the trio interact again. We also get a bit more interaction with Percy and Poseidon, which is sweet. Not sure where this new trilogy of books is going to go, but I wish Chalice of the Gods had built up a more interesting arc to look forward to reading.